You also want an ePaper? Increase the reach of your titles
YUMPU automatically turns print PDFs into web optimized ePapers that Google loves.
Weirdos and freaks,<br />
scientists and philosophers,<br />
libertines and mavericks of metal music!<br />
Half a year ago avantgarde-metal.<strong>com</strong><br />
began to sprout its branches into the<br />
internet. Originally it was meant to be a<br />
little harbour for lovers of the metal<br />
sounds beyond the streamlines. But very<br />
soon it became obvious that we are not<br />
the only ones bored by the clichés and<br />
conventions of the metal scene.<br />
Your interest in the weird sides of metal<br />
is stunning. More than 45.000 visitors<br />
show that the metal revolution has already<br />
begun! And so avant-gardemetal.<strong>com</strong><br />
grew rapidly. In February<br />
2007 we started with four people. Now<br />
the crew consists of 16 enthusiastic writers<br />
from all corners of the world. More<br />
than two hundred articles have been<br />
written to present you the most experimental<br />
and innovative sounds metal can<br />
provide.<br />
So we thought that the time was ripe for<br />
a big Christmas present for you – the<br />
first print edition of avant-gardemetal.<strong>com</strong>.<br />
On 124 pages you can find<br />
all online interviews and reviews of the<br />
most important avant-garde metal albums<br />
of 2007. And you can find the results<br />
of your voting for the best albums<br />
of this year. Discover the hidden Treasures<br />
&<br />
Never stop the Freak Show…<br />
Chrystof<br />
23 rd December 2007<br />
1<br />
Index<br />
Crew 2<br />
About <strong>Avantgarde</strong>-<strong>Metal</strong> 4<br />
Interviews<br />
BETHLEHEM 5<br />
DøDHEIMSGARD 12<br />
ABIGOR 22<br />
FLEURETY 31<br />
KOROVAKILL 38<br />
DOL AMMAD 44<br />
ANGIZIA 51<br />
MANES 60<br />
SATANOCHIO 63<br />
BERGRAVEN 67<br />
KEKAL 69<br />
THE AMENTA 74<br />
IMPURE DOMAIN 78<br />
[D]EKADEN[Z] 81<br />
GIRE 84<br />
ANSUR 88<br />
UMBAH 92<br />
BRACHIALILLUMINATOR 94<br />
ABSTRUSE 98<br />
Reviews<br />
Retrospection 2007 102<br />
Your Top Ten Albums 103<br />
More new Releases 111<br />
Hidden Treasures 118<br />
Imprint 125
THE CREW<br />
Chrystof Niederwieser<br />
Tyrolean Alps<br />
Admiral of the Editorship<br />
Katja Honeywine<br />
van de Barrel<br />
Germany<br />
PDF design and<br />
MySpace Mistress<br />
Studies Environmental Science<br />
and Resource Management<br />
-<br />
writing for "The Grimoire of<br />
Exalted Deeds"<br />
Olivier Côté<br />
Montreal, Canada<br />
reviews, stories and interviews<br />
studying Philosophy - writing<br />
stories and essays<br />
EROS - Live, learn and love -<br />
that's all there really is.<br />
Jobst (in real-life<br />
realms known as<br />
Nofar)<br />
Tel Aviv, Israel<br />
reviews, stories and interviews<br />
author at its first novel peak<br />
- writer and co-editor in the<br />
Israeli reviews website "The<br />
Blind Janitor"<br />
2<br />
Bernd Grünwald<br />
Vienna, Austria<br />
Webmaster and Designer<br />
- design with Eclipse New<br />
Media<br />
- organizing concerts with<br />
KV Kaltenbach<br />
- music with Sternenstaub<br />
aVoid<br />
the southern Swedish<br />
woods<br />
reviews, stories and interviews<br />
Bassist in Havok, Strange<br />
Calm and Infernal Hellfire,<br />
plus a few clandestine<br />
projects - studying English<br />
and Musicology<br />
Jegger<br />
Austria<br />
interviews<br />
Guitarplayer for Tristwood<br />
and Bearcht – writing a<br />
doctorate in German philology<br />
Jonny Lignano<br />
enfant terrible of reviews,<br />
stories and interviews<br />
Favorite guitar chord: e<br />
Favorite letter: l<br />
Favorite addition: c + l = d<br />
currently developing a<br />
dictionary of imperatives<br />
that are no real imperatives<br />
(i.e. Drehtüre)
James Slone<br />
Lost Wages, Nevada -<br />
now lives in Seattle,<br />
Washington (USA)<br />
reviews and stories<br />
Freelance writer, film<br />
blogger, radical activist,<br />
performance artist, amateur<br />
guitarist, lover of the<br />
good things in life<br />
Tentakel P.<br />
Germany- Hamburg,<br />
pearl of the north<br />
reviews, stories and interviews<br />
-Drummer of Todtgelichter<br />
-Lover of literature<br />
-Watcher of weird movies<br />
-Player of retro-games<br />
Suleiman Ali<br />
Pakistan<br />
reviews, stories and interviews<br />
Planning Engineer by<br />
Profession & family man<br />
by calling - mastermind<br />
of the weird musical experience<br />
Burzukh<br />
Ulv<br />
In the middle of Croatia<br />
reviews, stories and interviews<br />
A thought: "Gold is to<br />
give silence a form"<br />
Favorite addition:<br />
d + c = Lignano<br />
The meaning of life is to:<br />
.... create<br />
3<br />
Polygon<br />
Bamberg (Franconia/Germany)<br />
reviews and interviews<br />
Sound-wizard of the German<br />
Black <strong>Metal</strong><br />
collective Membaris –<br />
currently returned from<br />
an academic exchange in<br />
Riga<br />
revon<br />
Hungary<br />
reviews and interviews<br />
Dives into: Origins of the<br />
<strong>Avantgarde</strong> movement,<br />
dadaist/surrealist movies,<br />
literature, photography,<br />
painting, astronomy<br />
Trident<br />
Southern Germany<br />
Reviews<br />
The mystery of life is not<br />
a problem to be solved<br />
but a reality to be experienced<br />
MvH<br />
born in Wiesbaden, Germany<br />
– now living in<br />
Virginia (USA)<br />
reviews<br />
Musician, Military History,<br />
Astronomy, Photography,<br />
Philosophy, Reading,<br />
Writing<br />
More information about us can be found in the “about” section of www.avantgarde-metal.<strong>com</strong>. If<br />
you’d like to get in contact with a crew member you also can find our email addresses there. Your<br />
messages are warmly wel<strong>com</strong>e!
ABOUT AVANT-GARDE METAL<br />
“Avant-garde” is the French term for “advance guard” or “vanguard”. It refers to<br />
people who venture into the unknown. Sometimes they find the shining shores of<br />
the future there, the visions and ideas of tomorrow. Sometimes they get lost in<br />
the forests of insanity, in the whirls of chaos and confusion. But it’s always new<br />
worlds that they discover. Sometimes the avant-garde of today will be<strong>com</strong>e the<br />
mainstream of tomorrow. But most avant-garde will always remain absurd and<br />
strange to the masses.<br />
<strong>Avantgarde</strong>-metal.<strong>com</strong> is dedicated to the pioneers of metal, to those bands and<br />
musicians who incorporate new and innovative elements into metal, who break<br />
conventions, tear down walls, violate borders. They build new worlds. They surprise.<br />
More than for any other term in metal, the characteristics of avant-garde metal<br />
are hard to specify. What’s fresh, innovative, new, surprising? The answer to this<br />
question lies in the eye of the beholder.<br />
Some say avant-garde metal is the art of creating deep and strange atmospheres<br />
by experimenting with new instruments and sounds, strange vocals, unconventional<br />
song structures, rhythms and harmonies, unusual lyrics or un<strong>com</strong>mon artwork.<br />
Others describe avant-garde metal as progressive, psychedelic, surrealistic,<br />
phantasmagoric, expressionistic, dissonant or extravagant interpretations of<br />
extreme metal. But what do such words really mean? We don’t care, because...<br />
...DEFINITION IS THE DEATH OF INDIVIDUALITY!<br />
<strong>Avantgarde</strong>-metal.<strong>com</strong> was created to provide a home for all those metal bands<br />
that try out new things and create their own, individual paths. It was created for<br />
everybody who is bored with the petrified spiderwebs of cliché, <strong>com</strong>merce and<br />
convention.<br />
Anyway, avant-garde metal is freestyle. We don’t want to judge whether a band<br />
or an album is avant-garde or not. All artists who claim to be avant-garde will be<br />
featured here. Some of them might seem like ordinary, conventional metal to<br />
you. About some others you may think that they are not metal at all anymore,<br />
that they are something <strong>com</strong>pletely different. We won’t participate in such controversies<br />
about categorization. Decide for yourself if a band inspires you or not.<br />
If you know any weird artists that aren’t featured on this site yet, don’t hesitate<br />
and send us an e-mail! And if you are a musician and have produced some weird<br />
music, then your CDs are always wel<strong>com</strong>e here.<br />
ENTER THE WEIRD SIDES OF METAL!<br />
4
BETHLEHEM<br />
Dictius Me Spectare<br />
By Katja Honeywine van de Barrel<br />
Bethlehem is not only the name of a city<br />
where Jesus was born and the whole insanity<br />
of Christianity came to life. It is also a hyper<br />
creative bunch of young/old, partly good<br />
looking musicians creating sounds that wanna<br />
make you jump off the bridge or some skyscraper,<br />
that make you wanna cut yourself<br />
with a knife, that make you partly wanna<br />
masturbate or even cook rotten eggs with<br />
horse worms and mouldy bread.<br />
Bethlehem always went their very own way.<br />
In 1994 they released their debut album<br />
called "Dark <strong>Metal</strong>”, which nowadays is a<br />
synonym for a whole new sub-genre. Their<br />
albums are considered to be idiosyncratic<br />
masterpieces with weird and enigmatic lyrics.<br />
Jürgen Bartsch,<br />
creative head,<br />
bassist, lyricist<br />
and electronic<br />
technician of<br />
Bethlehem, a<br />
band which has<br />
ac<strong>com</strong>plished<br />
so much since<br />
the formation<br />
in 1991. Jürgen<br />
Bartsch, a fantasticinterlocutor<br />
who talks<br />
as long and<br />
much on the<br />
phone as my<br />
mother at the<br />
hair dressers.<br />
"Mein Weg" has already been released 3<br />
years ago. What has happened in the<br />
meantime? Will Bethlehem disciples ever<br />
get new fodder?<br />
Sure, in the meantime I am preparing another<br />
long player together with "Herr Morbid<br />
of Forgotten Tomb" which is planned getting<br />
recorded at late summer 2008. The recordings<br />
should be done at the Priory Recording<br />
Studios in England, since I and Greg<br />
of "Esoteric" are in contact since the early<br />
90s; we ever wanted doing something together<br />
and so will do soon. Later on, the<br />
tracks will get their final mix + master in my<br />
own mastering studio. It seems like "Kvarforth<br />
of The Shining" & "Théry Jonathan of<br />
Ataraxie" will be responsible for the vocals<br />
then, specially Théry's vocals could be best<br />
described as the original "Landfermann" kind<br />
of style, coz they totally sound similar to<br />
5<br />
those ones. Pretty much extreme. Other musicians<br />
surely will be "Olaf Eckhardt" for the<br />
second guitars again and of course "Stevo"<br />
on the drums. A very nice line-up we hopefully<br />
also can play life a bit with.<br />
In the last years I more cared bout my sideproject<br />
called "Stahlmantel", I did different<br />
demos for since I started with this shit back<br />
in 1999. Stahlmantel is kinda electro thing,<br />
ourselves do call it, Dark Industrial Elite Suicide<br />
= D.I.E.S. This description of course is<br />
totally bollocks like nearly all of em are<br />
somehow, but anyway. Without stupid crap<br />
like that no one is taking you so serious,<br />
right? So give you guys some bone, hope you<br />
gonna feel <strong>com</strong>fortable with.<br />
In 2007 we finished the recordings for our<br />
latest demo "Satan Snuff Machine". I again<br />
wrote all the music for this, some dark, disturbing<br />
and cold mixture of industrial elements<br />
in <strong>com</strong>bination with pure metal riffing.<br />
A friend of mine from Seattle/USA, known as<br />
"Nihilist" wrote<br />
all lyrics this<br />
time and was<br />
responsible for<br />
all vocals as<br />
well. Pretty disturbing<br />
black<br />
metal vocals I<br />
again have sent<br />
thru some distortion<br />
effects to<br />
let it sound<br />
more brutal and<br />
cold. Nihilist btw<br />
also is singing in<br />
"In Memorium"<br />
and "Abazagorath",<br />
both<br />
US bands. "Satan<br />
Snuff Machine"<br />
already was released in China as a<br />
limited edition of 500 CDs and also will be in<br />
Poland thru "<strong>Metal</strong>rulez Prod." with some new<br />
layouts + two bonus tracks, this or next<br />
month too.<br />
I at the moment also am working on a vinyl<br />
re-release of "Dictius Te Necare" for that<br />
polish label, which will be done as a very<br />
special edition of 66 copies with a T-Shirt and<br />
some other crazy shit, and also as a normal<br />
release limited to 500 copies or so. All songs<br />
are re-mastered and do sound way more<br />
brilliant now like on the original version.<br />
Check out, personally I wont promote things<br />
like that a lot, also wont with Stahlmantel.<br />
Prolly check the Stahlmantel website or try at<br />
MySpace.
The music on "Mein Weg" has been<br />
pretty <strong>com</strong>mercial <strong>com</strong>pared to all your<br />
other releases. Could that be a direction<br />
for further Bethlehem albums?<br />
I don’t think so. The "<strong>com</strong>mercial" aspect<br />
mainly is depending on the different musicians<br />
who became part of those recordings.<br />
My song writing still is the same one like in<br />
the past, never changed anything special with<br />
it. But the new guitarist does coz he is playing<br />
another guitar style than e.g. Matton<br />
once did and surely because of Meyer de<br />
Voltaire who brought in something different<br />
with his special way of singing. Another difference<br />
<strong>com</strong>pared to former albums was, that<br />
with "Profane Fetmilch lenzt elf krank" I<br />
started to produce Bethlehem releases by<br />
myself coz more and more felt so un<strong>com</strong>fortable<br />
with those wannabe "producers" from<br />
the past who basically had no fucken clue<br />
how to let it all sound the right way. Still in<br />
our re-room we always had a more powerful<br />
sound like on any of those 90s albums; specially<br />
Landfermann was such a pain in the ass<br />
with his digital bullshit productions, never<br />
ever will give those things<br />
out of hand again.<br />
Guess, a new Bethlehem<br />
album will sound different<br />
again, surely wont be<strong>com</strong>e<br />
some "Mein Weg"<br />
copy or so, more will be<strong>com</strong>e<br />
something cold,<br />
depressive & disturbing<br />
thing again like on the<br />
90s albums, but with a<br />
more powerful sound<br />
than in the past. I honestly<br />
dunno yet, and<br />
surely wont care bout this,<br />
never before "arranged"<br />
things too much, no album<br />
ever was "planned",<br />
all ideas behind always are <strong>com</strong>ing pretty<br />
spontaneous, since we wont do this for<br />
money, we always do what we wanna. Without<br />
any <strong>com</strong>promises.<br />
The album before was a fascinating mixture<br />
of metal music, weird sound collages<br />
and a radio play. Can you tell us<br />
more about "Schatten aus der Alexanderwelt"?<br />
"Schatten aus der Alexander Welt" originally<br />
was done for the "Filmstiftung NRW" and<br />
planned as some short movie for the "Das<br />
kleine Fernsehspiel" TV series. I wrote the<br />
short story as well as the script. But coz of<br />
different personal problems, I don’t wanna<br />
mention here, it could not be realized like this<br />
and therefore was used for Bethlehem some<br />
months later.<br />
6<br />
How satisfied are you with the realisation<br />
of this album, especially concerning<br />
the narrators? Sometimes it is hard to<br />
transfer own ideas into someone else<br />
who is speaking them out, but with another<br />
intention than you probably would<br />
have spoken… Would you rather have<br />
spoken yourself?<br />
Basically I am not quite satisfied with the<br />
result to be honest. This surely has many<br />
reasons, since my health wasn’t at a good<br />
state during the recording sessions; I somehow<br />
wasn’t so concentrated as well as motivated<br />
like I normally am if working in a studio.<br />
Another reason surely was, that things<br />
like a new record <strong>com</strong>pany, as well as finding<br />
actors or narrators in general for that thing,<br />
re-writing everything for a more musical concept,<br />
the huge pressure caused by people like<br />
e.g. Matton who shortly before studio again<br />
decided to leave the band, totally disturbed<br />
the whole process. We did not had a singer<br />
and Meyer de Voltaire came in only two<br />
weeks before entering the studio, so there<br />
wasn’t time for practising etc. The <strong>com</strong>plete<br />
Chaos! And a <strong>com</strong>plete new situation for me,<br />
coz it was the first time<br />
in my life that I had to<br />
work as a director,<br />
specially those professional<br />
TV actors who<br />
spoke the main parts<br />
of this radio play were<br />
used to work like this.<br />
Beside, we also had<br />
uninitiated persons<br />
who also weren’t used<br />
doing things like that<br />
before.<br />
So everything became<br />
some strange experiment<br />
which basically<br />
wasn’t planned like<br />
that before and although I also spoke one<br />
character "Archangel Gabriel", I somehow<br />
could not transport nor direct my personal<br />
point of view into the whole radio play.<br />
Therefore, the once very dark & disturbing<br />
mood behind, was destroyed by myself and<br />
artistically seen surely became some failure.<br />
And surely Prophecy also wasn’t able to pay<br />
money for once wanted speakers like e.g. the<br />
German voice of Robert De Niro, as well as<br />
others who probably would have brought in<br />
some more professional touch in general.<br />
Anyhow, I wont look back, the album was<br />
done the best I could do at that period of<br />
time. Specially with all those circumstances<br />
working against me.
I know questions about lyrics and their<br />
meaning are always stupid, especially<br />
when it concerns such an enigmatic poet<br />
like you. Still I think that the lyrics are<br />
kind of the quintessence of Bethlehem.<br />
So I'd like to talk a bit about it. Though I<br />
am a native speaker in German I have to<br />
admit: I don't understand the lyrics at all.<br />
But somehow they have a very strong<br />
effect. At first my brain looses its anchors<br />
and begins to spin - it's all so<br />
strange and distorted. And then your<br />
words evoke very strong pictures in my<br />
head. So one thing I'd like to know: Do<br />
you try to consciously build a meaning in<br />
your lyrics? Or are they more transporting<br />
an irrational stream out of the sub<br />
consciousness? Or do they have a special<br />
meaning, but a very personal one that<br />
just Jürgen Bartsch can understand?<br />
Not really. All lyrics ever done not only should<br />
have some exclusive meaning only for myself.<br />
Since I am using a very metaphoric style,<br />
everybody who is more interested in some<br />
deeper themes than some stupid, metalcliché<br />
oriented crap, surely will find him-<br />
/herself back in those ones. Although every<br />
lyric or poem is telling a pretty personal story<br />
for me, I sometimes also experienced my<br />
7<br />
words more as some spiritual landscape,<br />
some mood, feeling or atmosphere, telling<br />
me some different story like the original<br />
meaning did. Therefore, everybody who can<br />
let these words <strong>com</strong>e close to his/her mind,<br />
also will find his/her own very personal<br />
meaning behind em. This is wanted but varies<br />
alot on the momentary mood of each human,<br />
I personally sometimes found myself at<br />
a wonderful place in a wonderful space but<br />
also in some dark and horrible cave, known<br />
as my sometimes own sick mind.<br />
I remember well your description of the<br />
Alexander world in an ABLAZE interview<br />
long time ago. This has been years before<br />
the release of "Schatten aus der<br />
Alexanderwelt". Are you still there<br />
sometimes? Or has it be<strong>com</strong>e a shadow<br />
of your past?<br />
Haven’t been there for a while but this wont<br />
mean anything. Because the last time I visited<br />
my sub consciousness before I started<br />
writing about it was when I was a 7 year old<br />
child. And there was a break for around 20<br />
years then. So, I am sure that one day the<br />
enormous door again will open for me. Cant<br />
await it.<br />
Could the Alexander World be described<br />
as the dark part of your sub consciousness,<br />
your resort out of the boredom of<br />
the real world? Maybe a parallel world<br />
where strong morphines like heroin are<br />
the key for entrance?<br />
I honestly don’t think so. Like I said, it first<br />
happened when I was a child and be sure I<br />
had no fucken knowledge of drugs during<br />
that time. It surely has something in <strong>com</strong>mon<br />
with my sub consciousness, or could also<br />
have with my mental disease. When I was a<br />
child I first started escaping from reality, coz<br />
the real one did not offer me so many positive<br />
things in general. Since I already have<br />
red some very personal things bout my past<br />
in the internet, spread by some jerk I should<br />
know personally, I don’t wanna <strong>com</strong>ment on<br />
those things any longer, somehow wanna<br />
keep my personal experiences from the past<br />
exclusively for myself. Hope you do understand?<br />
Fine.<br />
In the mid 90's there was a picture<br />
taken of you giving yourself a shot with<br />
the needle. Did you consume drugs at<br />
the time? What kind of drugs, did they<br />
help to write the music and what is your<br />
opinion on drugs today?
Drugs? I am not so sure yet Missy, but aren’t<br />
some of em forbidden? Well, I still am a follower<br />
of all Christian rules, only eat bread,<br />
only drink water and have no sex.<br />
What about the parts in the radio play<br />
where the lobster is cooked? Is this a<br />
personal memory of you? Would you<br />
describe your father as cruel?<br />
Yes its a very personal memory and I don’t<br />
wanna <strong>com</strong>ment on this too. Although I already<br />
have done in the past. Shame on me.<br />
Many of your lyrics deal with suicide.<br />
Can it be a solution?<br />
Totally! Still met many different people in my<br />
life who somehow acted very wise by killing<br />
themselves instead of go on torturing themselves<br />
and their surroundings for further<br />
years again. Surely this opinion isn’t wanted<br />
so much, coz people say there "always" will<br />
be some other "solution". I personally am<br />
thinking that this might be right in some<br />
cases but in others this surely might not work<br />
and instead of suffering in pure pain for the<br />
rest of your life, mentally or physically,<br />
one better should have the<br />
strength to kill oneself.<br />
We also have received many, many<br />
letters of folks who somehow found<br />
back to life with our suicidal interpretation<br />
of music and art and surely<br />
this made us all real proud. But personally,<br />
I never would see Bethlehem<br />
as a "solution" but more as only one<br />
aspect for a way out of one’s own<br />
misery. Kinda help in suicidal questions,<br />
not more. As kinda last resort<br />
before killing thyself.<br />
8<br />
Because of these lyrics you also had<br />
problems with the police. How often<br />
have the police <strong>com</strong>e to your house to<br />
shake you down for "bad material of any<br />
kind”? Have they ever found anything<br />
they could buttonhole you for?<br />
If I get it right, they "visited" me four times.<br />
The first two times they mainly came to my<br />
house for interviewing, all other times they<br />
took nearly everything with em they could<br />
find here, letters, mainly letters, flyer, tapes,<br />
drawings, lyrics, CDs, LPs, all that. Nearly got<br />
it all back except some records like a Mayhem<br />
bootleg with the dead Dead on it, some<br />
pics showing me naked, <strong>com</strong>pletely covered<br />
in blood, some letters with stupid swastika<br />
etc. bullshit drawn on em, some old VHS stuff<br />
showing early black metal bands during their<br />
live shows, or more personal ones. Also never<br />
got back the "Sid Vicious" movie on VHS,<br />
which damn was shown on TV as well. And<br />
surely more stuff I cant remember yet.<br />
In the end I was accused of doing some Terrorist-Network<br />
which was based on the<br />
worldwide fan-letters I received to that time,<br />
as well as some of my lyrics which would<br />
spread some "violent theories" in their opinion.<br />
The result was that Bethlehem could no<br />
longer play shows in the area we lived in, and<br />
that Red Stream has to change an album title<br />
+ the booklet photos. My lawyer said it would<br />
be wise doing, otherwise they surely would<br />
accuse me again and I surely would get some<br />
nice sentence for this shit. The original accuse<br />
was smashed at the court, fortunately<br />
the judge was pretty "open-minded" and it<br />
somehow was possible to explain the artistic<br />
concept of Bethlehem and Heavy <strong>Metal</strong> in<br />
general.
You have had many line up changes with<br />
Bethlehem. Are you difficult to work<br />
with?<br />
I dunno. Am I folks? Personally I<br />
wont think so, but this surely<br />
depends on whether other musicians<br />
ever were <strong>com</strong>fortable<br />
working together with me. Coz<br />
me, I sometimes wasn’t and<br />
better decided to fire some people<br />
coz of e.g. not <strong>com</strong>ing to<br />
rehearsals for months, or bringing<br />
their personal problems into<br />
the band, or acting like real<br />
"rock-stars" like Landfermann<br />
once did, or did not <strong>com</strong>e to the<br />
studio while recording a record,<br />
or any other reason.<br />
Some other members fired emselves<br />
coz they e.g. were afraid<br />
of the success, or wanted to dictate their own<br />
silly musical point of view, or whatsoever.<br />
Surely this caused many, many problems in<br />
the past but since I know that I could work<br />
with so many different people these days, I<br />
never would care about again.<br />
You’ve been with Redstream for quite a<br />
long time, then signed with Prophecy<br />
and went back to Redstream. Why the<br />
change of label?<br />
I honestly have no clue! Like I said, I wasn’t<br />
so <strong>com</strong>fortable with myself in that period and<br />
therefore picked up interests of other band<br />
mates too damn quickly. Today I know it was<br />
some very huge mistake doing, specially coz<br />
I of course had to care bout everything again<br />
by exclusively myself although once it was<br />
said, that "others" would take more responsibility<br />
too. But anyway, guess too many things<br />
already were said bout the "partnership" of<br />
Bethlehem and Prophecy. So I better wanna<br />
close that book forever.<br />
9<br />
I realized your new haircut on your new<br />
Website and I realized further the use of<br />
third Reich symbols such as the Reich<br />
eagle but without the swastika<br />
symbol. Why are you<br />
using fascistic metaphorical<br />
language? Are you showing<br />
sympathy with the National<br />
Socialism or do you want to<br />
provoke? And why the hair<br />
cut?<br />
Well, the "haircut" was done<br />
coz I haven’t cut my hair for a<br />
long time and they started to<br />
more and more "break" at the<br />
peaks. Other than that I was<br />
bored by always cleaning my<br />
flat which was covered with<br />
those long, brown hairs everywhere.<br />
Somehow it was like I<br />
would have a bunch of hundreds<br />
of dogs at home. This totally pissed me<br />
off. So one day I took some machine and cut<br />
em all off, which somehow was like paradise.<br />
Meanwhile they still are growing and became<br />
longer again although I am not so sure yet<br />
whether I again wanna have em hanging<br />
around my knees. This sux alot. I am a German<br />
Patriot, no doubt. But being a Patriot not<br />
directly means being a Fascist. Those "Fears"<br />
exclusively are typical German fears dictated<br />
by different foreign countries and their interests<br />
keeping Germany controlled. All Germans<br />
once in their lives, - mainly at school<br />
where one has to study the "right" history<br />
written by people who have won the II. World<br />
War -, were brain-washed and were manipulated<br />
to believe that every thought <strong>com</strong>ing to<br />
your mind, whether it’s the idea of the socalled<br />
"III. Reich", or some symbols, or<br />
maybe clothes, boots, music, art, whatsoever,<br />
best can be described with something pretty<br />
criminal. Exclusively done to start another<br />
World War or to rot everybody who is not e.g.<br />
"Arian" or whatever. The brainwash is working<br />
really good, you also directly asked me<br />
whether I would "sympathize" or "provoke",<br />
which is soooooooo typical getting asked over<br />
here. Specially over here. But also in nearly<br />
all other European country coz people over<br />
there also are brainwashed with those subjects.<br />
Instead of feeling too guilty they are<br />
forced hating us.<br />
So basically whole Europe is manipulated by<br />
e.g. the United States of America or Israel.<br />
Be sure they are following their own interests<br />
and surely wont give a damn, whether this<br />
will be<strong>com</strong>e traumatic for a population or not.<br />
Basically this totally is wanted. Whether I<br />
sympathize with National Groups or not,<br />
surely wont be<strong>com</strong>e a theme here. Using<br />
"fascistic metaphorical language" definitely is<br />
an interpretation or yourself and I also will
not <strong>com</strong>ment on those things here. All I can<br />
tell you is, that I am a proud German man<br />
who really enjoy living in Germany which for<br />
me personally is the best country<br />
in the whole world, I have<br />
great respect for my Godfathers<br />
and Mothers and to no time<br />
would deny my cultural and<br />
also historical roots, whether<br />
they were good or bad.<br />
So if e.g. using symbols of my<br />
own culture, I definitely wont<br />
feel guilty doing and whether I<br />
gonna follow some "political"<br />
aspect with this or wont, well<br />
this always depends on the<br />
things I mentioned here before.<br />
I by the way stripped off the<br />
chains of mental slavery long<br />
time ago, no longer feel guilty<br />
of being German and therefore,<br />
see myself as some strong,<br />
self-assertive, individual, and<br />
free member of the global<br />
<strong>com</strong>munity.<br />
Some years ago I did an interview<br />
with you where you disliked the<br />
internet and tried to avoid it as much as<br />
possible. And now you are having your<br />
Stahlmantel.<strong>com</strong> and MySpace Page going.<br />
Was that the reason for the haircut?<br />
You changed your opinion about the<br />
internet <strong>com</strong>pletely?<br />
What the heck? Hahahaha, great imagination!<br />
Cutting off your hair because of the Internet?<br />
Somehow cool idea, wow! No I haven’t<br />
changed my mind bout the Internet, it surely<br />
still is some control system for the dumb, but<br />
one also can use it to spread the word around<br />
a bit more. Ever used it for e.g. writing<br />
emails around the world, which definitely is<br />
more <strong>com</strong>fortable than doing the "writing<br />
letters" stuff from the past which on the one<br />
hand was expensive doing and on the other<br />
got lost so many times. My "Stahlmantel"<br />
website wont be visited by people who are<br />
interested in Stahlmantel itself, it more is<br />
used from a handful of guys, who gonna<br />
meet there on the small "Bethlehem forum",<br />
I once have opened there.<br />
The Bethlehem MySpace profile at the moment<br />
has around 13,000 clicks in a period of<br />
four months, but basically this wont mean<br />
anything. Never sold any records there, so<br />
basically this network is done for really nothing.<br />
The Stahlmantel profile was dead since<br />
the very beginning. Those new and free "possibilities"<br />
only are some other tool of the<br />
momentary "Zeitgeist" which totally is impressed<br />
by personal prostitution and global<br />
10<br />
entertainment of mainly useless crap. Sure, I<br />
would be an idiot if not using this for my own<br />
crap too, specially coz I pay for this and also<br />
use it for the most important<br />
thing in my life, being in a<br />
closer connection with my girlfriend<br />
who is living in Barcelona/Spain,<br />
but it never was<br />
the revelation for me in general.<br />
Sorry to say.<br />
Just recently you've told me<br />
about your new job, similar<br />
to Käthe Kruse and<br />
Schildkröt, on creating fetish<br />
dolls for dominatrix studios<br />
etc. Can you send me<br />
some pictures for agm.<strong>com</strong><br />
and tell me how you got the<br />
idea of making such dolls?<br />
Do you own Käthe Kruse<br />
dolls?<br />
No, I don’t and though I somewhere<br />
heard this name before,<br />
I honestly know nuthing bout<br />
"Käthe Kruse dolls". Unfortunately<br />
I cant send you photos<br />
at the moment, coz my new creation of real<br />
seize Fetish Dolls isn’t yet finished. I am sure<br />
I will finish the new series till end of December,<br />
so if you would agree, I could send new<br />
photos to a later date? Thank you. Well, the<br />
idea was born together with a Dominatrix<br />
back in 2006, she wanted to open a special<br />
studio where beside getting e.g. whipped or<br />
humiliated, you also could buy some Fetish<br />
Wear or Fetish Latex clothes, fitting you like a<br />
second skin.<br />
Since I am experimenting with those materials<br />
for many years now, I thought it would be<br />
some cool idea also doing some more artistic<br />
kinda things which surely isn’t exclusively<br />
done for Studios or Scenes, but also for people<br />
who follow some morbid taste. So, since<br />
the end of 2006 I experimented alot with this
idea but always failed coz of many, many<br />
handicraft- and also copyright problems.<br />
Meanwhile I progressed with my techniques<br />
and therefore decided to step away from the<br />
original idea and better open my own <strong>com</strong>pany<br />
called "Body-Drop" which is specialized<br />
on creating those special artworks for a wider<br />
crowd as well. Like in music, I don’t wanna<br />
limit my art to only some special scenes,<br />
everybody who wants em, can buy em of<br />
course. If you folks should be interested,<br />
please contact me under<br />
"info@stahlmantel.<strong>com</strong>".<br />
In 1994 you've called your debut album<br />
"Dark <strong>Metal</strong>". Now many years later a<br />
whole scene has developed around this<br />
term. It's even mentioned in online encyclopaedias<br />
like Wikipedia as a special<br />
subgenre of metal. What do you think<br />
about that? Can "Dark metal" be seen as<br />
an own metal genre? How would you<br />
define?<br />
Bethlehem = Dark <strong>Metal</strong>. Ever was, ever will<br />
be. Of course it can be seen as an own genre<br />
now, coz it is. Although in my opinion, some<br />
bands did not get the original meaning behind<br />
and just called it like that although playing<br />
just e.g. usual black metal.<br />
11<br />
On the other hand bands like The Shining,<br />
Silencer, Forgotten Tomb, Abyssic Hate and<br />
many, many more somehow understood the<br />
intension behind and since they call it "Suicidal<br />
Dark <strong>Metal</strong>" which basically is the same<br />
term, they all interpreted it in a very special,<br />
unique and grateful manner. Which of course<br />
honours us a damn lot, specially coz we are<br />
the original creators of some new sub-genre,<br />
followed by so many people these days?<br />
So basically, beside some old German bands<br />
like e.g. "Can" or "Kraftwerk", also "Bethlehem"<br />
created something not known before<br />
and therefore helped to progress a worldwide<br />
musical genre. This is more than we ever<br />
expected. Amen.
VICOTNIK<br />
(DøDHEIMSGARD, VED BUENS ENDE)<br />
An Odyssey Of Lost Teeth<br />
By Olivier Côté<br />
As I don’t really believe that I could actually<br />
<strong>com</strong>e up with an introduction as interesting<br />
as the man I’m about to introduce to the<br />
avant-garde hyper famous hall of music, I<br />
had the idea to let his own friends speak out.<br />
Vicotnik aka Viper aka Mr. Fixit aka Osama<br />
Bin Askeladden aka 498 aka Vicon-Tiki has<br />
been around for at least fifteen years, and<br />
throughout his multiple projects and personalities,<br />
he obviously carried a strong artistic<br />
statement up every musical scene’s tiny asshole,<br />
whatever impact that might has had.<br />
Ved Buens Ende, DHG (Dødheimsgard), Endwarfment,<br />
Aphrodisiac, and Den<br />
Saakaldte represent some parts of his past<br />
and present catharsis. Nevertheless, my only<br />
true concern, during our written conversations,<br />
was to give him an opportunity to<br />
freely think through his own mindset. I can<br />
therefore only hope that you’re all going to<br />
enjoy the final transmissions. Directly from<br />
outer space, please wel<strong>com</strong>e Mr. Fantastic<br />
Deceptionist, the great Indian psycho terrorist<br />
Yusaf Parvez...<br />
The man is uniquely intelligent. – Carl-<br />
Michael Eide<br />
Vicotnik, a remarkable friend and individual…<br />
Always manages to surprise you either with<br />
his ways or his creativity in music. Clever as<br />
hell, devoted in everything he is doing…Definitely<br />
one of the most interesting, in<br />
every way, people I have ever met and an<br />
honor for me being his friend! – Michael<br />
Sykelig<br />
Yusaf is a visionary in the true sense of the<br />
word…He has a singular dedication to his<br />
music, and an unflinching desire for it to be<br />
the best it possible can be. When he plays<br />
you a new riff, you can instantly recognize his<br />
trademark sound and style, but despite how<br />
familiar you are with that style, you will<br />
never fail to be amazed by the new and unconventional<br />
ways he contorts the strings to<br />
fit his purpose. He is one of the few musicians<br />
I believe has truly crafted a world of<br />
their own and no one can touch it. – Andy<br />
Aort Mcivor<br />
Vicotnik is stubborn as fuck!!! – Apollyon<br />
When I met Vicotnik in 1999 his arm had<br />
been bandaged. I asked him what happened.<br />
He replied that one day he suddenly thought<br />
that his arm shouldn’t belong to him anymore.<br />
12<br />
So he tried to smash it. – Christof Niederwieser<br />
Well, I’ve known this character for about<br />
fifteen years now, and what can I tell you,<br />
Yusaf has been a good friend, probably the<br />
closest thing I have to a brother. He’s a very<br />
reliant person, always there to back you up.<br />
He’s most honest and doesn’t necessarily say<br />
exactly what you wanna hear in a troubled<br />
situation, but you get to hear what he means<br />
is right. He’s a stubborn man and probably<br />
the most enduring bastard I’ve ever known<br />
ha ha! Think I haven’t seen him submitting to<br />
anything without giving it all his best. He’s a<br />
man with strong characteristics, and a will of<br />
his own!!! He tends to be<strong>com</strong>e a bit unstable<br />
in some situations (especially the alcoholicinfluenced<br />
ones), he’s a bit moody, and you<br />
don’t always know where he’s at or what he<br />
is thinking. Anyway, I sincerely love him and<br />
wish him only the best. – Bjørn Aldrahn<br />
Dencker<br />
Well hi there, Vicotnik! Congratulations<br />
for your killer <strong>com</strong>eback within a sometimes<br />
excessively much sterile metal<br />
scene, Supervillain Outcast is for sure an<br />
amazingly refreshing take on Black<br />
<strong>Metal</strong>! You must be aware that truckloads<br />
of people have been impatiently<br />
waiting for DHG to give them a new blast,<br />
because as we all recognize it, 666 International<br />
had a huge impact on everyone<br />
involved in appreciating Black<br />
<strong>Metal</strong>’s historical evolution back in 1999.<br />
It has been such a long time since your<br />
last musical appearance as DHG, and I<br />
would like it if you just tried to introduce<br />
us to the realm of these seven years that<br />
went by in between the release of 666<br />
International and your actual state of<br />
mind regarding music. Basically the<br />
question burning on everyone’s lips is: in<br />
retrospect, why in the hell did it take so<br />
long to bring this new album to a life of<br />
its own?<br />
Hey man. Cheers for the praise. I was not<br />
very happy when I read your first question
(laughs). If I ask you what you believe is the<br />
most frequently asked question nowadays,<br />
what do you say? You guessed it, this one.<br />
Nevertheless, I will do my best to venture<br />
down this road once again. I started planning<br />
this album already when we were in the studio<br />
recording 666 International. Some songs<br />
in some form or another date to back then.<br />
After touring in relation to 666 International,<br />
I went to Spain to either finish writing the<br />
new album or drink my self to death. I went<br />
far south and rented myself a little house. As<br />
I was sitting outside my door, drinking bottles<br />
of wine with braids in my hair, the Spanish<br />
kids ran by me pointing and laughing.<br />
This appealed to my sense of cosiness, so I<br />
put myself to the abuse everyday. I also<br />
tracked down a place the locals referred to as<br />
a really bad neighbourhood. So every night<br />
around eleven or twelve, I filled up my pockets<br />
with all the money I had and ventured up<br />
and down the neighbourhood. It<br />
soon became clear to me that these<br />
criminals and robbers thought I was<br />
CRAZY, and therefore did not touch<br />
me. Other nights I ventured down<br />
to bars where the macho men and<br />
the bimbo women were courting<br />
each others and I pretended to be<br />
homosexual, grabbing the guys’<br />
asses, and asked if they wanted to<br />
spend some time with me. This did<br />
not really sit well with the guests.<br />
Funny enough, I was never asked<br />
to leave and I never got kicked in<br />
the ass, they probably thought I<br />
would like it. One day, I was standing<br />
in the shower and brushing my<br />
teeth, and I could feel the teeth<br />
bending backward. I stopped brushing<br />
and tried yanking my teeth with my fingers.<br />
It turned out every single one of them<br />
was barely sticking in my gums. It was time<br />
to go home. I had in fact been able to create<br />
something of a blue-print for most of the<br />
songs.<br />
Well back home, I started gathering people to<br />
get them involved, and for a long time it was<br />
only me and Czral whom rehearsed. Members<br />
came and went as we went along and in the<br />
end we had our guys. In 2003 I believe, we<br />
entered the studio to record our mess. Here<br />
everything started going wrong, both technically<br />
and with the line-up of the band. Half<br />
the band suddenly left and left their work for<br />
me. It was like having a birthday inside a<br />
straight-jacket. Here started the real process<br />
of finding a new vocalist, getting new lyrics,<br />
making effects, editing, recording, mixing,<br />
etc… Then I believe I took a pause while<br />
working with , and I now and then<br />
worked as a studio engineer. But I have more<br />
or less worked with the album since we en-<br />
13<br />
tered the studio to now. It’s very time demanding<br />
when you have to learn the things<br />
you are going to do. The time spent though,<br />
gave me the opportunity to get a new band<br />
on its feet and rehearse simultaneously as I<br />
was working in the studio with various things.<br />
In the end, I’m very happy with all our efforts<br />
and I’m very proud of the album.<br />
Now that was a mind-trip! Back in 2003,<br />
many fans were shocked by what appeared<br />
to be some deeply depressing<br />
news. Your all-time colleague and only<br />
original line-up member, lyricist and vocalist<br />
Aldrahn, suddenly left the building,<br />
and so did <strong>com</strong>puter mind Zweizz and<br />
experimental drummer Czral. What went<br />
wrong between yourself and these highquality,<br />
really unique musicians, since<br />
we all can appreciate how essential their<br />
roles were in the shaping of 666 International?<br />
I want to point out<br />
that Zweizz was<br />
never the <strong>com</strong>puter<br />
mind in DHG.<br />
He did not make<br />
the effects on 666<br />
International; he<br />
played the synth<br />
and the piano. The<br />
guy responsible for<br />
the effects on 666<br />
International is<br />
Ginge from the<br />
Electro act SUB-<br />
GUD. Seeing<br />
Aldrahn leave was<br />
definitely the hardest<br />
of the three. I<br />
had felt for many years that I kinda made<br />
music for me and for him. Aldrahn is still on<br />
top of my list of friends and I am sure we will<br />
do something in the future as well. He quit<br />
because he was to be<strong>com</strong>e a father and could<br />
not be so devoted to the band anymore.<br />
Now, some years later, it’s been proven that<br />
his exit was not really necessary. On the<br />
other hand, I think that all of us guys that<br />
have held each others hands for the last 15<br />
years made a wise decision to let go. I believe<br />
we all benefited from this, and as a result<br />
of it we can be<strong>com</strong>e better artists and<br />
performers. Czral had been my main cooperation<br />
partner since the Ved Buens Ende<br />
days, so the desire to break free from each<br />
others and develop on our own was really<br />
strong. Zweizz was more a result of a mutual<br />
decision. He wanted to start making songs; I<br />
did not want to <strong>com</strong>promise my life’s work for<br />
something I probably wouldn’t like. So that<br />
one was not very hard.
One has to remember as well that DHG had<br />
not really been a band since we rehearsed for<br />
Satanic Art.<br />
666 international is mainly my musical catharsis.<br />
I wanted to rid myself of every theme<br />
I had made that I could remember and did so.<br />
This is mainly an album that came out of the<br />
close work between me and my producer at<br />
the time, Bjørn Boge. Of course others contributed<br />
as well, but as for the hard work,<br />
sleeping, eating and shitting, that’s me and<br />
Boge. Aldrahn contributed a lot in the sense<br />
that he performed well and wrote the lyrics.<br />
He is one of the best vocalists this scene ever<br />
nurtured. Zweizz biggest contributions are<br />
the piano interludes; all the synth and piano<br />
in the songs were either arranged by me or<br />
by the producer. 666 International is a constructed<br />
idea. I am its father, but it has a life<br />
of its own.<br />
Alright man, thanks for clearing up this<br />
issue. Would you then mind revealing to<br />
us who are the new DHG band members,<br />
in regards to personal anecdotes, to<br />
their musical talents and to their particular<br />
personalities? I would think that<br />
you have chosen each one of them for<br />
specific reasons; could you then please<br />
expose at least some of these reasons?<br />
The single greatest thing with these members<br />
is that prior to joining<br />
the band they<br />
were like the biggest<br />
fans. The<br />
practical value of<br />
having members<br />
that love the band<br />
is that it’s really<br />
easy to pull in the<br />
same direction. The<br />
guys I have been<br />
playing with in the<br />
past are all great,<br />
14<br />
but they were very conscious about their own<br />
careers. Picking the new guys was really easy<br />
because of the fact that I’ve known most of<br />
them for a great number of years prior to<br />
them joining. When it <strong>com</strong>es to anecdotes, I<br />
am not sure if it’s fair of me to put my members<br />
in a predicament. We have seen each<br />
others in about every fucked up situation you<br />
can image. A year ago or so I and Kvohst<br />
were trashing around the apartment, when<br />
my heart suddenly acted up, and as I thought<br />
I was dying, Kvohst was running around not<br />
knowing how to handle it. He is a British guy,<br />
so he didn’t even know the number to the<br />
ambulance. I imagine how useless he felt,<br />
running around with the phone in his hand,<br />
while his band mate was getting less and less<br />
conscious. The world really gets small in a<br />
situation like that.<br />
The members involved right now are Kvohst<br />
on the vocals, Thrawn on the guitar, Clandestine<br />
handling the bass, Darn playing drums,<br />
Jormundgand taking care of the synth and of<br />
course yours truly.<br />
Well, how do you personally <strong>com</strong>prehend<br />
your musical evolution within an important<br />
metal sub-genre such as Black <strong>Metal</strong>,<br />
which has now be<strong>com</strong>e kind of a trend in<br />
many over-intellectualised indie magazines<br />
and so-called experimental circles?<br />
Do you think that you belong to any<br />
scene at all, or in other words, are you<br />
consciously contributing to the establishment<br />
of one particular musical ideology?<br />
Your first two albums were obviously<br />
connected to old-school black<br />
thrash metal, whereas with Satanic Art<br />
and 666 International, everything became<br />
much more blurred and abstract<br />
when it <strong>com</strong>es to genre aesthetics. What<br />
is now DHG’s artistic agenda?<br />
Opinions in that sense are not very important<br />
to me. Even Black <strong>Metal</strong> will die, but then<br />
there will always be all the old albums, so the<br />
spirit of Black <strong>Metal</strong> will never die. There will<br />
always be good music around. What I do<br />
hope though is that people know what they<br />
are doing and why they are doing it, that<br />
there is some sense of honesty to their craft.
I don’t get mad if some band from the underground<br />
scene makes it real big. It’s basically<br />
none of my business. I try to be conscience<br />
about myself, I try to grow, improve<br />
on all levels and basically lead a beneficial life<br />
where pre-ordained dogmas or principals<br />
have no value unless they are my own. The<br />
same way it’s not really interesting either to<br />
throw my wisdom upon the world, so to<br />
speak. I think people will benefit more to<br />
listen to their hearts than to listen to me.<br />
I have chosen to have my contact with the<br />
outside world through music. It’s not to prove<br />
a point; it’s just putting my experience into a<br />
kind of endless format. As to what I hope it<br />
achieves? I hope it inspires people to create,<br />
to be better people, to take better care of<br />
themselves, to get more in touch with suppressed<br />
areas of their emotional life, or<br />
something <strong>com</strong>pletely different: basically,<br />
what I hope to achieve is up to you…<br />
Our artistic agenda will always change, like<br />
human beings change. Even though we don’t<br />
want to, we do. So since Satanic Art we have<br />
be<strong>com</strong>e more blurred for the reason that we<br />
have be<strong>com</strong>e more organic in a way. It’s not<br />
just infantile fantasies or metrological report<br />
of some kind. It’s a whole life inside our records.<br />
Even the old albums are records of life,<br />
in a simpler, more one-sided sense.<br />
All my albums tell me something about myself.<br />
I have faith, I think anyone would benefit<br />
of having a belief system. It cannot be for<br />
selfish reasons generated through fear, redemption,<br />
hypocrisy, career, etc. Faith is not<br />
about getting, it is about achieving. Faith has<br />
to be the model for your personal ideal. I<br />
cannot understand all the interest people put<br />
into other people’s life, don’t they find themselves<br />
interesting enough? For me, I do want<br />
people to be close to my music if they feel it,<br />
but I have no desire about them obsessing<br />
about me.<br />
I think there was a scene once that sort of<br />
shared ideals, or to be more eloquent, a<br />
scene where you shared a lack of ideals. I<br />
mean <strong>com</strong>e on, all of us were just kids, and<br />
let’s face it: we weren’t much different from<br />
any other teenagers growing up at the time,<br />
except that we had somewhere to vent our<br />
desires and our frustration. This argument is<br />
thoroughly strengthened by the fact that if<br />
you go take part in the Black <strong>Metal</strong> scene<br />
here in Norway nowadays, you will quickly<br />
see that it’s all about spending time together<br />
and the shared interest in the music is what<br />
draws the people together.<br />
When it <strong>com</strong>es to me personally, I did not<br />
start to listen to Black <strong>Metal</strong> and then got<br />
interested in the occult. The passion was<br />
already there. I have also grown up with<br />
15<br />
many different religious paths around me as I<br />
have an Indian background. This is why Black<br />
<strong>Metal</strong> put my butt in the seat as soon as we<br />
were acquainted, because the flare for the<br />
contents in Black <strong>Metal</strong> already resided inside<br />
me.<br />
Now let’s talk about DHG’s sick-to-thebone<br />
homemade library. Aldrahn's lyrics<br />
and performances on 666 International<br />
were basically all over the place and<br />
quite out-there, so to speak, absorbing<br />
elements from mythological narratives<br />
as well as taking kind of a post-modern<br />
twist on absurdist poetry - in one word,<br />
it was downright unique. What about<br />
Kvohst's writing and singing, and how<br />
would you say that they are directly connected<br />
to the music found on Supervillain<br />
Outcast?<br />
I think Kvohst writes a lot better technically<br />
and in a much clearer narrative. It’s easier to<br />
write in an absurd fashion, because you are<br />
not really revealing anything. "Gobbling<br />
numbers to safety, aerobatic stance unblurred.<br />
Focus rendering motion, tears cracking<br />
strong hostile limbs." I am basically talking<br />
about eating breakfast and training, who<br />
would ever think that? It’s easy to hide the<br />
fact that you don’t have much on your mind if<br />
you write in a way that in the end is 100 %<br />
up to the interpreter. I am not saying Aldrahn<br />
has nothing on his mind, but artistically<br />
Kvohst’s lyrics suit me a lot better. Because<br />
it’s not about shying away, and at the same<br />
time they are kind of written from the viewing<br />
point of the observer. I think it be<strong>com</strong>es a<br />
bit bogus when your genius is dependent<br />
upon other people’s interpretations. I feel our<br />
lyrics now have the edge they previously<br />
missed.
His performance on the album<br />
was kind of a three way effort,<br />
Aldrahn’s obviously, but also<br />
our producer and my own. 666<br />
International was not a rehearsed<br />
album, it was a plan<br />
and a vision I had, which I put<br />
into <strong>com</strong>mission with contributions<br />
from friends and a whole<br />
lot of work together with my<br />
producer. I needed a kind of<br />
catharsis, getting rid of all the<br />
material I had collected over<br />
the years. It’s kind of like a<br />
crossover between music and<br />
cabaret. So Aldrahn’s lyrics<br />
worked like hand in glove. But<br />
this time around, I wanted to<br />
take a big step to the next level.<br />
You were saying that with<br />
Supervillain Outcast, you<br />
had to learn everything<br />
"technical" from scratch,<br />
including programming, sampling, making<br />
effects and so on. Listening to the<br />
way you present Black <strong>Metal</strong>, I get the<br />
feeling that you're a fan of many other<br />
forms of music, like for instance techno,<br />
noise or whatever. I also know that back<br />
in '96, you took part in the dark ambient<br />
noise band Aphrodisiac. Therefore I'm<br />
curious to know if that's a kind of musical<br />
output you'd like to explore once<br />
again, now that you can more thoroughly<br />
handle electronic devices.<br />
I was a little bit learned on the making loops<br />
and effects bit. Not much but a bit. On the<br />
other hand I knew nothing about being an<br />
engineer and there is really a hell lot to learn.<br />
Yes, I do listen to a lot of different forms of<br />
music. In my estimation you only have good<br />
or bad music, I am not that genre-oriented.<br />
Different genres emphasize different emotions.<br />
What happens with me musically is<br />
nothing I really plan. We just have to see<br />
what I jump into. Right now there is a lot<br />
going on though, and I think in relation to<br />
doing my very best, I have to stay concentrated<br />
on the tasks ahead. Aphrodisiac was<br />
making insane music without rock-oriented<br />
music instruments, and it was a great dive<br />
into the sordid psyche.<br />
In a previous answer, you mentioned<br />
that your interest in the occult was already<br />
there, even before you discovered<br />
Black <strong>Metal</strong> as a musical form. Let's<br />
guess that this interest has ever since<br />
then very much expanded in space and<br />
time. At the present, what do you mean<br />
by "occultism" - is that some kind of a<br />
life philosophy connected with any<br />
known or unknown traditions in particu-<br />
16<br />
lar? And how is your definition<br />
of occultism affiliated<br />
together with your<br />
musical impulses?<br />
When I previously said occult,<br />
I used it as a general label of<br />
anything being related to<br />
spiritual phenomenon. I was<br />
brought up in a Muslim family,<br />
and in this day and age<br />
Muslims are probably the<br />
group of people whom take<br />
their faith the most seriously.<br />
My upbringing was subjected<br />
to all the Muslim traditions<br />
and customs. I was even<br />
supposed to marry my<br />
cousin. For most people subjected<br />
to this, it’s natural<br />
just to adopt the belief system<br />
of your father. But for a<br />
small group of people this<br />
upbringing creates quite a<br />
strong consciousness from a really early age.<br />
Not far into my existence I came on odd edge<br />
with my family. Being on my own opened<br />
even more doors in my mind. I think all the<br />
situations that put you at risk in some way,<br />
either physically or mentally, are the most<br />
beneficial. Faith-systems are a God ideal<br />
that’s theoretically you, if you fulfil your potentials<br />
and live in order to reach your capacities.<br />
Finding your own nature is a lifelong<br />
dedication. In order to do so you have to<br />
emancipate yourself from basically everything<br />
you know and start redefining, using yourself<br />
as the tool to do so. True religion does not<br />
concern everybody else, true religion only<br />
concerns the man or woman who subjects<br />
him/herself to it.<br />
I do regard myself as a Satanist; this means<br />
that I support self-indulgence. I seek for personal<br />
truth and freedom, simplicity and efficiency.<br />
It’s merging your soul with life’s fabric.<br />
It’s a system of representation. We create<br />
our own damnations and rewards. When I<br />
became an outcast, the world suddenly expanded.<br />
I made two decisions concerning the<br />
years ahead. Number 1 – Get acquainted<br />
with the world’s vast portions of philosophy<br />
and religion. That’s the best way to understand<br />
our history as well. In other words you<br />
dive into all the world’s opinions and see<br />
that’s basically what the fabric of the world is<br />
– opinions. Number 2 – Was subjecting myself<br />
to every kind of subjective experience I<br />
could think of and later view them both objectively<br />
and personally. All kinds of situations<br />
were interesting, even the ones that did<br />
not benefit me materialistically or in some<br />
other form. The dirtier and darker the experience,<br />
the happier I was. Processing information<br />
in every thinkable angle and at the same
time living it; it’s kind of being an observer of<br />
society. Not in a critical or naive way, but just<br />
observe to be<strong>com</strong>e more knowledgeable and<br />
powerful. Of course all this is very general,<br />
but so is the question.<br />
Part 2: A Dance Between Chaos And Order<br />
You said somewhere else that the new<br />
DHG album is already <strong>com</strong>posed. I know<br />
it's a bit early to start thinking about<br />
that, but I would guess that throughout<br />
all these years you've been giving shape<br />
to at least a vision of DHG's future. Is<br />
there something you've not been exploring<br />
on Supervillain Outcast and would<br />
like to try out next time? Not to speak<br />
against Kvohst, as of course his vocal<br />
performances are quite intense, fully<br />
ac<strong>com</strong>plished and perfectly wellexecuted,<br />
but is there any chance to<br />
bring Aldrahn back to your musical madness?<br />
I know you guys are good friends,<br />
so that's basically why I'm asking.<br />
No, unless Kvohst quits there is no chance of<br />
that happening. His style, range and ability<br />
suit my ambition a lot more. Aldrahn has a<br />
lot of heart, but also has a lot to learn technically.<br />
I think he is content with what he possesses,<br />
so it’s better that he does bands that<br />
do not demand a clinical execution as well as<br />
bringing along the heart into the equation.<br />
Aldrahn has a great voice and he is by no<br />
means finished with his career. I guess both<br />
a Thorns album and a The Deathtrip album<br />
are not ages away from being presented to<br />
the public. I am also happy about the fact<br />
that Kvohst is British; it gives a deeper exploration<br />
of the English language. Now the lyrics<br />
17<br />
are as I want them, more accessible but<br />
multi-stylistic. We can now thoroughly write<br />
about certain themes, atmospheres, ideas,<br />
etc. and keep a red thread from one lyric to<br />
another, without being conceptual.<br />
Most of DHG's fans know how long both<br />
the mixing and the mastering of Supervillain<br />
Outcast took in order to get <strong>com</strong>pleted.<br />
In <strong>com</strong>parison, some bands only<br />
spend perhaps one or two months mastering<br />
a whole album. Would you mind<br />
introducing us to what was so hard to<br />
balance within your sound particles?<br />
Was there something specific you had a<br />
hellish time to drive into perfection?<br />
What was the most challenging part of<br />
the mixing/mastering process? Without<br />
going into too many technical details, it<br />
would be highly interesting to read<br />
about the sound-picture you were aiming<br />
for and finally had the pleasure to<br />
achieve. I believe that Thrawn was helping<br />
you out throughout the whole adventure,<br />
is that right?<br />
I don’t think everybody in this scene is an<br />
artist. A lot of people just want to play carbon<br />
copies of the bands they like. I am ok with<br />
that, it’s not my point. My point is that if I<br />
wanted to make a Celtic Frost sounding album,<br />
I would know exactly how long every<br />
aspect of the production would take, and<br />
could therefore make a realistic time-line.<br />
When your idea is something that lives in<br />
your brain, and wants to manifest itself<br />
physically for the first time, things like time<br />
do not exist. A wise man once said that great<br />
art is never finished, only abandoned. This is<br />
very true. I did not want to abandon my mu-
sic before it fitted the profile I created for it.<br />
In doing so I ensured that a lot of my personality<br />
went from organ to plastic. DHG is<br />
not only about recreating a mood, like battery<br />
albums sound and look cool, lets do this.<br />
DHG is about pushing boundaries, both personal<br />
and musical.<br />
I’m sure most of us all discovered with<br />
great pleasure your stunning approach<br />
to bass playing on < code >'s first album<br />
Nouveau Gloaming, as at last it was possible<br />
to feel and hear prominent and intricate<br />
bass lines within a dreamy Black<br />
<strong>Metal</strong> context. I understand that you<br />
also are the producer of the band. So<br />
how's the new album <strong>com</strong>ing along;<br />
what do we have to expect this time<br />
around? And as the producer, will you<br />
try to bring Simen's voice to new, unexplored<br />
territories, as I feel that within<br />
Dimmu Borgir's area of<br />
sound, his singular potentialities<br />
are somewhat<br />
restricted to a<br />
more epic-sounding style<br />
of singing?<br />
I would very much want to<br />
take Simen’s talent in another<br />
direction. His talent is<br />
enormous, but his Borknagar<br />
or Dimmu Borgir style<br />
would not be<strong>com</strong>e < code ><br />
that much I am afraid. I<br />
would like to take Simen in<br />
a much darker direction.<br />
Glad you like the bass playing;<br />
I think the album<br />
turned out very well. The<br />
new album is a bit delayed<br />
due to other priorities. Me<br />
and especially Simen are busy characters. I<br />
produced the Nouveau Gloaming album, but<br />
Andy had really put in the direction and the<br />
context with his songwriting. Hopefully we<br />
will be finished with the new < code > album<br />
this summer. It’s not easy when both DHG<br />
and Dimmu Borgir have had new releases<br />
this year.<br />
Please enlighten us regarding the new<br />
band you've recently joined, I'm speaking<br />
of Den Saakaldte. Is that only a sideproject<br />
or a full-time band where your<br />
contributions are of a great importance?<br />
And after having played together with<br />
Czral for such a long time, whose drumming<br />
skills were quite impressive to say<br />
the least, how does it <strong>com</strong>pare with<br />
Hellhammer's technical capacities? Any<br />
preferences?<br />
Hellhammer is the more technical drummer<br />
and hard worker. Carl is a pure artist. It’s<br />
18<br />
never about his mind or limbs, it’s his heart.<br />
Carl is one of the most talented people I<br />
know. Not because he is the best, but because<br />
he is so honest in his work. Den Saakaldte<br />
is a friend’s project, what it will be<strong>com</strong>e<br />
is yet to see. Right now, Den Saakaldte<br />
means helping out a friend, but I am sure<br />
that as the material surfaces, I will get really<br />
dedicated to that specific expression. I have<br />
contributed with a riff here and there. Michael<br />
does not really need my help on making<br />
songs to his vision so to speak. I am sure my<br />
main contributions will reside outside the<br />
sphere of instruments.<br />
Since some of your musical output<br />
<strong>com</strong>es out sounding rather psychedelic<br />
and soul-bubbling so to speak, I would<br />
be curious to know if there have been<br />
any legal or illegal substances that<br />
somehow had an impact on the way you<br />
handle your music in<br />
DHG, or on how you<br />
perceive it as a <strong>com</strong>poser.<br />
There are a few<br />
mind-expanding drugs<br />
out there that share<br />
some elemental qualities<br />
with DHG's bursts<br />
of emotional explorations;<br />
what do you<br />
personally think about<br />
drugs when they are<br />
absorbed in relation<br />
with musical <strong>com</strong>position?<br />
I leave that speculation<br />
up to you. What do you<br />
think? I have not made<br />
any music under the influence<br />
of drugs, but I do<br />
think that what you put into your body also<br />
<strong>com</strong>es out in expression. It’s already something<br />
there that relates to the mind. If you<br />
are a workout alcoholic, obviously that would<br />
work better for you if you eat and sleep right,<br />
but also if you ordain your mental discipline<br />
in accordance to what you want to achieve.<br />
That goes for every human being. If you are<br />
a careless person, that will be apparent in<br />
what you eat, when you sleep, what you talk<br />
about, who your friends are, etc. Drugs are<br />
not important in my life, exploration is. Nothing<br />
is fixed in black and white, even though<br />
we are thought to fit into that dualistic way of<br />
thinking. Our world is made up on an antagonist\protagonist<br />
relationship. The way we<br />
have chosen to develop as a collective is just<br />
a possibility. It is born out of an idea.<br />
Even in our modern history things could have<br />
looked very different right now. If Hitler<br />
would have won two world wars (not very<br />
realistic, but indulge me), our education sys-
tem would have been very different, as Darwinism<br />
would fill up our schooldays. We<br />
would teach more about differences than<br />
similarities. Our cultural life would have been<br />
dead. Sense of pride and honour would have<br />
a different meaning. This isn’t any less fixed<br />
than how we live today, but it illustrates a<br />
general world work on other values in pursuit<br />
of truth and happiness.<br />
Back to drugs, I think anything you can conquer<br />
benefits you, not necessarily in the eyes<br />
of our state or your mother, but those two<br />
institutions base their relationship to it on<br />
concern (yes, I call motherhood an institution).<br />
I think if one really is to see some things<br />
worth, one has to base the right emotion or<br />
deed to the right context. That’s why knowing<br />
yourself is so important. I know a lot of people<br />
think they have <strong>com</strong>e to this next level<br />
just by wishing so. But as soon as they are<br />
struck by something really trivial by the outside,<br />
like for example owing taxes, girlfriend<br />
breaking up, etc., they tend to act programmed.<br />
Defining self-worth from an outside<br />
standing point. How would you react if<br />
your girlfriend fucked some other guy?<br />
Probably like most in your male demographic.<br />
Why is that? Why is shifting blame and responsibility<br />
suddenly such a wel<strong>com</strong>e creed?<br />
Why is it suddenly poor little helpless me,<br />
and you dirty whore? I understand it on an<br />
emotional level, and I have nothing against<br />
people reacting in this manner. That’s a really<br />
interesting point. Too many people have the<br />
luxury and time to sit and define themselves<br />
with words that practically rarely are tested.<br />
To achieve this lifelong longing for experience<br />
you cannot have the luxury of being <strong>com</strong>fortable<br />
all the time. People rarely live up to<br />
19<br />
what they represent themselves to be when<br />
their balls are against the wall.<br />
There’s no wonder why we sit on pubs drinking<br />
with our friends, while we define ourselves<br />
as these big, great, important idealists.<br />
Ha, what a laugh! From great strife rises the<br />
Phoenix. I got a bit side-tracked. I could sum<br />
up why drugs in 99 percent of all cases are<br />
bad: because most people use them to escape,<br />
not to form.<br />
What happened to<br />
Czral back in march<br />
2005 must have been<br />
such a shock, since he<br />
had been your main<br />
jamming drummer<br />
and friend for all<br />
these years prior to<br />
his tragedian jump.<br />
Then Ved Buens Ende<br />
resurrected from the<br />
tomb, but you guys<br />
have lately once again<br />
disbanded, since as I<br />
understand it, Czral<br />
wanted to mainly concentrate<br />
on his riffing<br />
style and therefore<br />
refused to share the<br />
<strong>com</strong>posing content of<br />
the band. Are you going to be linked, in<br />
some way or another (for example in the<br />
studio work) with the up<strong>com</strong>ing Virus<br />
album? And what will <strong>com</strong>e out of the<br />
riffs you made while Ved Buens Ende<br />
was still being alive; perhaps more<br />
songs in the vein of All Is Not Self?<br />
What happened to him is his business. What<br />
happened to us is just as you say. Carl<br />
wanted to make our project his project. Thus<br />
I said: your thing is Virus, make that band<br />
the best in the world. I understand that he<br />
wants to do his own thing, and I wish him all<br />
the luck in the task at hand. It would be<br />
great to produce Virus, but I guess that after<br />
15 years of band playing, <strong>com</strong>munication has<br />
be<strong>com</strong>e a bit unnatural. So I am unsure if it<br />
really would benefit Virus. I will probably use<br />
the Ved Buens Ende parts I made, that can<br />
be taken in another direction, in DHG.<br />
Let's now regress in time; we’re in ‘93-<br />
‘94, when Black <strong>Metal</strong>'s second wave<br />
was arising, leading up to many new<br />
unknown paths. Back at the time, you<br />
were forming what is now considered to<br />
be an all-time cult band, Ved Buens Ende,<br />
together with Carl-Michael Eide and<br />
Hugh Mingay. You guys were one of the<br />
first to explore the more unconventional,<br />
psychedelic and experimental side of<br />
Black <strong>Metal</strong>. In retrospect, how do you
think Ved Buens Ende had or hadn't a<br />
musical impact on the scene? Were you<br />
a respected band back then? And from<br />
your perspective, what do you think<br />
happened to Ved Buens Ende in 1995-<br />
1997? I'm sure many old fans have been<br />
wondering about that.<br />
I think it’s a bloody shame that Ved Buens<br />
Ende never outlived its potential. If we made<br />
an album today with the experience we have<br />
gathered over the years, I am sure it would<br />
be something special. It’s not all lost though,<br />
as Carl-Michael has his Virus, which in many<br />
ways is Ved Buens Ende’s younger cousin.<br />
We were not a respected band back then, but<br />
we were respected individuals within the<br />
scene. I think Ved Buens Ende was way<br />
ahead of its time, having our genre in mind.<br />
The interest in the band today is awesome;<br />
the few releases we put out are pure cult in<br />
people minds. I remember critics from Germany<br />
back in the heyday (around 1995) even<br />
claimed that we could not handle our instruments,<br />
that we were shitty musicians. Then<br />
those very same magazines would hail bands<br />
like Martyrium and Graveland. I have nothing<br />
against these two bands, but they were never,<br />
what should we say, really clinical when it<br />
came to their instrumentation. That’s a nice<br />
way of putting it I think.<br />
Ved Buens Ende was a deeply misunderstood<br />
band, because it was difficult to connect with.<br />
You know, some bands are really an instant<br />
satisfaction, whereas with Ved Buens Ende,<br />
you have to explore the music, its craved of<br />
you as a listener. What happened to us? Well,<br />
20<br />
the same thing that happens to a lot of bands,<br />
namely EGO. Carl-Michael and I should have<br />
given Hugh more power in the band, because<br />
he would have managed to keep it together.<br />
Another thing is that Ved Buens Ende was<br />
neglected because our other projects took<br />
most of our time. I do not think Ved Buens<br />
Ende will resurface in the nearest future, but<br />
never say never. Maybe we just need a couple<br />
of more years to mature as individuals<br />
before we can re-animate this joint venture.<br />
Is it ironic for you to consider that the<br />
only time you went out on tour was in<br />
1999 with one of the most popular bands<br />
from Norway, namely Dimmu Borgir, in<br />
order to present such a fucking challenging<br />
and unpopular album? You seem to<br />
have been in touch with that particular<br />
band from the very beginning, as you<br />
were singing on their first album For All<br />
Tid, and even had their guitarist Galder<br />
on Satanic Art; is that a band you are<br />
particularly fond of, music-wise? Now to<br />
the ultimate question: both of you have<br />
released a new album almost at the<br />
same time this year, so why in the hell<br />
didn't you go out on tour together once<br />
again?<br />
I think if we went on tour this time around, it<br />
would actually be more successful. Dimmu<br />
Borgir is not really my cup of tea. I think they<br />
have great things going on here and there,<br />
but they do not really nurture the feelings I<br />
want to be in contact with when listening to<br />
extreme music. I have tremendous respect<br />
for their hard work and their fucking awesome<br />
dedication. One of the, if not the hardest<br />
working bands in this country. If you<br />
don’t get inspired by their music is one thing,<br />
but you really have to be blown away about<br />
their dedication. I wish them the best of luck,<br />
even though they seem not to need it at all.<br />
Yes, I did some vocal work on their first album,<br />
and a long scream on the second one I<br />
believe. The reason for this is plain and simply<br />
kinship. They are friends, and we have<br />
really grown up in this scene together. Galder<br />
played a little bit guitar for us back in 97,<br />
before he was a part of Dimmu Borgir. At<br />
that time his ambition resided in Old Man’s<br />
Child, so the affair was brief. He is a fucking<br />
great guitarist, both playing-wise and when it<br />
<strong>com</strong>es to melody and arrangements. Gene<br />
Hoglan once said he was the best guitarist he<br />
ever worked with. That’s some testament of<br />
your abilities. Maybe Dimmu Borgir and DHG<br />
will do something in the future together, it’s a<br />
difficult call. Practically it would not be much<br />
of a problem, but I think our fan bases are<br />
probably miles apart. All the best to them.
Earlier in our conversations, you were<br />
touching the subject of observation, experience<br />
and individual empowerment.<br />
While reading another interview of yours,<br />
I noticed how much you were<br />
being critical towards capitalism<br />
in general, especially regarding<br />
the fixed state of<br />
things, and how man, now<br />
that he seriously believes<br />
that everything is as it should<br />
be, isn't able anymore to picture<br />
himself up to another<br />
level of reality. Having now in<br />
mind Theodor Adorno and his<br />
famous phrase - "the task of<br />
art today is to bring chaos<br />
into order" - I would guess<br />
that Supervillain Outcast is not only a<br />
path you've found leading to self-growth<br />
and self-realization, but also, somehow,<br />
your personal statement against the actual<br />
forms of social order. Maybe I'm all<br />
wrong here, but I just want you to <strong>com</strong>ment<br />
on the possible power of artistic<br />
idealism and freedom, when it <strong>com</strong>es to<br />
their impact on our system's economical<br />
and human total decadence? Is that<br />
something you are conscious about<br />
when you start thinking about how DHG<br />
is linked with the world<br />
where its music is conceived?<br />
In other<br />
words: how does a supervillain<br />
outcast relate<br />
to the city that<br />
first nurtured himself?<br />
Those two things you<br />
mentioned above are no<br />
contradictions; they are<br />
flip-sides of the coin. Yes,<br />
I despise a lot of things,<br />
but I am content over<br />
everything’s brief moment<br />
in history. So I am content<br />
despising. It takes<br />
one big change for the<br />
whole world to be affected<br />
by it. This in turn<br />
will change what made the change in the first<br />
place, and there you have the process all<br />
over again. This is the pulse of the world; all<br />
energy is an always constant thing. Yes, I am<br />
the observer, not the meddler, I meddle with<br />
people who are within my sphere here in life,<br />
and they go inflicting their life on someone<br />
else. The importance of self-growth is really<br />
simple; without it, there is nothing. You yourself<br />
have to value your ideals and your words<br />
worth through practicing your disciplines under<br />
conditions you don’t control to really understand<br />
who you are. Reading books does<br />
not cut it. That’s basically smooching off<br />
somebody else’s valuable life earnings. Prac-<br />
21<br />
ticing while being unchallenged will most<br />
probably mean that your mental projection of<br />
yourself is manifested in what you would like<br />
to be, not what you are.<br />
Humans are funny; I<br />
think if you would have<br />
asked ten people to define<br />
an intelligent person,<br />
99 percent would build<br />
up a character very<br />
much like themselves.<br />
People tend to call people<br />
they agree with for<br />
smart just based on<br />
agreeing. I think it’s very<br />
easy for humans to be<br />
drawn to what they want<br />
to represent themselves with, so they can get<br />
and project their answers from their <strong>com</strong>panionship.<br />
You can really see the weakness in<br />
the human race through their habits. This is<br />
an element that shows how tired and lazy the<br />
human being has really be<strong>com</strong>e. Always<br />
striving for this outside validity, and confirming<br />
themselves through their group, partner<br />
and constructions. The dance between Chaos<br />
and Order works as much on a cellular order<br />
as on a galactic scale. We are very much part<br />
of this dance, we can even momentarily disturb<br />
the equilibrium of it. Holding<br />
on to our false structures of truth<br />
will only make the process of failing<br />
more painful. The human race<br />
is really part of something <strong>com</strong>pletely<br />
different, but we tend to<br />
put absolute truth into what we<br />
ourselves have created, that’s why<br />
we cannot let go, and probably<br />
why the human race will mean<br />
absolutely nothing in the end. DHG<br />
is part of my practice; one could<br />
transform all of my efforts in life<br />
endeavour into relating to DHG on<br />
a smaller scale. Success is a key<br />
word, but you have to measure<br />
success yourself, so you really<br />
understand what it means.<br />
I am not from a specific City; I<br />
was born in Oslo, raised in Stockholm and<br />
New Delhi area and have also lived in places<br />
like Askim and Malaga. I feel love for cities,<br />
but what I love is what I have experienced<br />
there. The experience is mine, not the City’s.<br />
For me as an idealist, I must craft myself to<br />
just as <strong>com</strong>fortable in a castle as in a coffin.<br />
Thanks a lot to Mr. Parvez for his precious<br />
time. I hope that you all had a good time<br />
reading through his mind. Maybe to be continued...
ABIGOR<br />
Inside The Fractal Lab<br />
By Tentakel P. & Chrystof<br />
There are many people out there who have<br />
hoped for a resurrection of the beast ABIGOR,<br />
and it seems Satan has answered their<br />
prayers and unleashed it upon the earth once<br />
again. Six years after "Satanized" ABIGOR<br />
have released a truly satanic masterpiece<br />
named "Fractal Possession", and with that<br />
they should finally manage to claim a place in<br />
the Black-<strong>Metal</strong> pantheon. ABIGOR have been<br />
a force to reckon with in BM since a long time.<br />
Yet "Fractal Possession" is - while still maintaining<br />
the coldness, brutality and the spirit<br />
of BM - experimental and innovative to a<br />
point where it even leaves most avant-garde<br />
metal acts behind.<br />
This trip into cosmic insanity can hardly be<br />
<strong>com</strong>pared with anything else, not even their<br />
previous releases – Reason enough to shed<br />
some light on the creative people behind it.<br />
PK and the freshly returned TT share<br />
thoughts with Chrystof and Tentakel P. about<br />
the mechanism behind ABIGOR, Black <strong>Metal</strong>,<br />
MP3's and our satanic pope<br />
.<br />
Ch: Peter and Thomas, you’ve<br />
been out of the metal scene for<br />
quite some years. Now you’re<br />
back with one of your best albums<br />
ever. What has changed<br />
most in the music scene since<br />
your departure? Has it be<strong>com</strong>e<br />
easier or harder for you to<br />
spread your works?<br />
PK: Hard to say, I never really cared<br />
about "what changed”, but each coin<br />
has two sides, so we definitely<br />
benefit that it all grew up throughout the<br />
years, on the other side it’s a shame that it<br />
all watered down and the entire genre (Black-<br />
<strong>Metal</strong>) is based on false images and sell-rates<br />
while leaving the important attitudes behind.<br />
But also new bands rose, new labels, new<br />
forms of distribution and promotion, so I<br />
won’t paint it all black, I guess it still undergoes<br />
it natural selection and with Fractal Possession<br />
we opened new ways for ABIGOR,<br />
some might dislike it, but Fractal Possession<br />
is a new chapter in ABIGOR’s history, it reflects<br />
ourselves, and the spirit of the time we<br />
currently live in – cold, nihilistic, death-trap.<br />
TT: Spreading our work is not the major concern<br />
basically, but of course, one or another<br />
thought at the time an album is (artistically)<br />
done appears. If it is easy or not these days<br />
– it's too early to give a well-founded analysis<br />
about the present market and our position.<br />
22<br />
Remember, my departure was at the turning<br />
of the millennium - things and technologies<br />
changed and the net and MP3 may have a<br />
negative influence and affect the quality for<br />
the listener as well as the artists alike. With<br />
people loading a hundred different tracks on<br />
their player the whole thought of an album, a<br />
self contained piece with a concept that includes<br />
artwork and lyrics, slowly seem to<br />
fade. Artists get reduced to "that great track<br />
nr. 12 on my iPod”, and not to forget the<br />
people's acceptance of shitty converted MP3s<br />
gets bigger and bigger, most people don't<br />
even get irritated when they hear this shitty<br />
flanging low-bit rate MP3 sound in the background<br />
somewhere. I could freak out every<br />
time I hear it. So, I haven't released music<br />
for 6 years and I don't know if all this has<br />
already affected our field of music.<br />
As for the Black <strong>Metal</strong> scene, where we obviously<br />
spread most of our albums,<br />
I just can say there's many serious artists<br />
and bands out there that create mature extreme<br />
satanic art, while in the 90s, when we<br />
peaked in terms of sales and "popularity”,<br />
Black <strong>Metal</strong> was in its teenage years. With<br />
Fractal Possession we clearly defined our<br />
position again, we don't belong to the "Lord<br />
Supersilentultraevil” forest castle fantasy<br />
type, and we don't belong to<br />
the old bands that once sold<br />
much and now just produce<br />
uninspired Black Rock'n'Roll<br />
either. End All Life/Norma<br />
Evangelium Diaboli is the<br />
perfect partner in crime, the<br />
most respected label hence<br />
our first choice to execute<br />
and spread our works.<br />
I would go that far to say<br />
EAL/NED rise above the <strong>Metal</strong><br />
market with many or even<br />
most of their releases and<br />
can be viewed as label for<br />
extreme satanic art without any boundaries<br />
of the average (B)M scene, which sadly often<br />
sticks to the <strong>Metal</strong> stereotypes that were<br />
conceived in/for the 80s and 90s, and falls<br />
into ridiculousness instead of really offering<br />
something more (or at least be REALLY extreme).<br />
TP: So what are your thoughts on the<br />
future of (metal) music then? People<br />
starting to buy or <strong>download</strong> only MP3's;<br />
making CD's, LP's and such obsolete? Or<br />
could there be a recollection to the "old”<br />
ways- There is a vast number of reunions<br />
these days, many bands from the<br />
70's/ 80's returning to the stage with<br />
varying success, even Led Zeppelin are<br />
rumoured to reunite from what I have<br />
heard. Could these bands manage to<br />
infuse interest for the past into today’s<br />
MP3-consuming youth? As you said, six
years are a long time- People listening to<br />
metal nowadays might not even have<br />
heard of ABIGOR before. Do you think<br />
you could be one of those bands to ignite<br />
interest for musical history in a new<br />
generation?<br />
PK: Now you <strong>download</strong> MP3s, back in the 80s<br />
you got a tape, so there’s no real difference,<br />
nor do I think, especially in (Black-)<strong>Metal</strong>,<br />
bands, labels not distributions suffer from the<br />
"illegal” <strong>download</strong>s, if one likes the album/samples<br />
the album will be bought. At<br />
least none can foresee how it all turn out,<br />
time will tell…<br />
TT: The MP3 problem is not only one concerning<br />
the "(music-)business” side, or not<br />
only one how to handle a piece of art. It simply<br />
affects how people perceive quality – and<br />
I think soon they don't give a fuck. A well<br />
converted MP3 played on a good stereo is not<br />
what I'm talking about (as it sounds quiet ok<br />
if you don't <strong>com</strong>pare it), but today people<br />
accept everything, as long as it's free. I hear<br />
so many shitty converted flanging/phasing<br />
MP3s around me everywhere, in people's cars,<br />
in shops and cafes/restaurants etc, that I<br />
sometimes ask myself if I'm the only person<br />
with ears around.<br />
The threshold of what people can take, of<br />
what they're used to listen to in terms of<br />
average quality gets lower and lower. You<br />
know, back in the days as T. A. Edison presented<br />
his early wax "turntable” (a roller of<br />
wax where you could record e.g.. a voice and<br />
then play it back, the precursor of the phonograph<br />
and the turntable) to the public they<br />
were all stunned "how realistic it sounds” –<br />
you can imagine how crappy that sounded,<br />
23<br />
but it was state-of-the-art. What I want to<br />
say is that people easily adapt to something,<br />
not too long ahead on this way and we arrive<br />
at the point where people accept shit and<br />
think it's all good, where they lost the ability<br />
to judge about quality.<br />
But apart from the quality issue, especially in<br />
Black <strong>Metal</strong>, music, layout, lyrics – everything<br />
should be viewed as one piece of art, not just<br />
the sound that's <strong>com</strong>ing out of a studio in<br />
whatsoever form, be it vinyl, CD, a file (originating<br />
"from the connection in the wall”,<br />
that's the horizon teenagers have these days.<br />
They don't care and they're not as informed<br />
as we were – when we liked certain albums<br />
back then we knew the lyrics, could draw the<br />
logo and knew every dot on the cover or who<br />
was in the thanx list. Today it's about a track<br />
in the MP3 playlist only, albums matter less<br />
and less). An MP3 player can't capture, it<br />
simply isn't, such a piece of art. People tear<br />
individual tracks out of the album context to<br />
an MP3 playlist and the music looses it's<br />
meaning and also it's value. How much is<br />
such an MP3 worth? Nothing. And therefore<br />
people loose respect of the artist's work as<br />
well. They forget that this sound file actually<br />
has a history full of sweat and blood, and<br />
quiet some people put in a lot of money before<br />
the first cent <strong>com</strong>es back from sales, all<br />
this seems like a long lost echo when I hear<br />
people talk about their MP3s. People that talk<br />
about their record collection have a different<br />
access. You almost feel the value and history<br />
of a respective recording when you have a<br />
great album in your hands, but take a file on<br />
your MP3player and you easily forget 1. why<br />
you should pay for music and 2. what this<br />
music has to say.
There are so many aspects why to strictly<br />
fight the MP3 culture at any costs, economic,<br />
artistic, sound-wise, etc. the perversity on<br />
the other hand: people pay 700€ for several<br />
old EAL releases, it's mad. Back to your question,<br />
EAL/Noevdia definitely has the right<br />
answer to this: high quality vinyl releases<br />
where you know there's people that try to get<br />
the best out of what they do, where the quality<br />
of the releases, how they're executed,<br />
<strong>com</strong>mand respect.<br />
You are able to look back on a vast number<br />
of releases so far, and obviously<br />
your style has developed away from<br />
what it has been in the early days to<br />
what it is now. Now, imagine anyone<br />
would have shown you Fractal Possession<br />
at the time you released, let us say<br />
Nachthymnen; telling you that this is<br />
what you will sound<br />
like in twelve years-<br />
what would have been<br />
you reaction? Have<br />
you even expected or<br />
planned to release<br />
albums for so long?<br />
TT: Without a shadow of<br />
a doubt I always thought<br />
to release albums for at<br />
least a very<br />
long/unlimited time in<br />
the respective times, and<br />
at the moment do so as<br />
well of course – if you<br />
aren't <strong>com</strong>pletely convinced<br />
that what you do<br />
at the moment is artistically<br />
totally relevant for<br />
your own spiritual health,<br />
then better stop. That's<br />
valid for Black <strong>Metal</strong> and<br />
24<br />
other spiritual/religious art forms, not what I<br />
expect of every artist in the world – there's<br />
many forms of and topics in art which are<br />
only relevant (for the artist) for a certain time,<br />
and that's not a bad thing, but when you<br />
create Black <strong>Metal</strong> you should be militant and<br />
un<strong>com</strong>promising in your conviction as well as<br />
execution, you should be able to capture a<br />
glimpse of infinity and therefore also believe<br />
(at least in that moment) that you will do<br />
what you do forever, because it's so relevant<br />
to you. The reaction if you played FP to us<br />
back then would have been a kick of motivation<br />
obviously. Back in the 90s we never tried<br />
to reach absolute perfection – not out of laziness<br />
but we simply couldn't imagine how,<br />
with our old working method (technical<br />
knowledge and skills included), in the old<br />
recording studio and with the old label/budget.<br />
Would you say that outer circumstances<br />
slowed your progress, and if you had<br />
better resources back then we would<br />
have gotten something like, for example,<br />
Fractal Possession much earlier from<br />
you?<br />
TT: You can't separate the circumstances on<br />
one hand and our own view about how to<br />
create albums on the other, but if we had a<br />
studio and engineering skills and a label like<br />
EAL in the last century then why not, something<br />
like Fractal Possession in terms of musical<br />
skills and sound could have been made<br />
in the 90s. Also in terms of style, because as<br />
I always point out, there are no new influences,<br />
we have always listened to a broad<br />
spectrum of music. Just on the lyrical side<br />
and the concept, this is something that had<br />
to be developed and sharpened through the<br />
years that needs experience and time.
In the 90s we accepted other inputs and topics<br />
as well, stuff that seemed "dark and evil”<br />
to us and worth writing about while these<br />
days we are much more focused. It is natural<br />
that the religious/spiritual side (of the music)<br />
is bound to grow with your experience and<br />
personal development, while the technical<br />
(playing and engineering) could advance<br />
really quick, especially if you have help, if<br />
someone shows you how to record and mix,<br />
and if you rehearse a lot.<br />
The sophistication of ABIGOR has progressed<br />
enormously through the years.<br />
Even though one could recognize unique<br />
melodies and style in your first outputs,<br />
Fractal Possession works with breaks,<br />
rhythms, sound effects and song structures<br />
which are worlds apart from what<br />
was in the past; yet ABIGOR have- at<br />
least to me- always been true to themselves.<br />
How would you <strong>com</strong>ment on that<br />
development? Have there been any catalysts<br />
at one point or did this evolution<br />
came naturally?<br />
PK: Seen from my point of view, TT turned<br />
out to a real sound-freak, and he’s responsible<br />
for so much that has been created/recorded,<br />
ideas we simply weren’t able<br />
to realize on the past recordings. Beside all<br />
that we recorded at his Hell-Lab studios, so<br />
working without pressure of time and money<br />
makes it all much easier at least.<br />
I guess the longer you play your instruments<br />
the better you be<strong>com</strong>e, so there’s no hidden<br />
story behind all that, it’s a natural development<br />
that makes working more effective and<br />
easier then in the past years, also that "not<br />
being involved” with the scene caused a<br />
change/difference in my opinion.<br />
TT: Natural progression, totally, no moment<br />
of artistic/technical enlightenment. We have<br />
been deadlocked in the 90s because from the<br />
very first album on we found a way (to write,<br />
record and release albums) that worked<br />
really well. I mean, until and incl. Channelling<br />
The Quintessence Of Satan (I didn't participate<br />
in Satanized) we progressed constantly,<br />
true to our understanding of the musical conception<br />
of Abigor which is bound to development/changes/progress,<br />
but I couldn't imagine<br />
a single fucking step further with 4track<strong>com</strong>position/Napalm/Hörnix.<br />
I think Channelling… is one of our best albums<br />
(except for the vocals maybe which are<br />
good but not that original – Thurisaz only had<br />
a few days back then because Silenius left<br />
right in the middle of the vocal-recording<br />
session), but after Channelling… I was burnt<br />
out. I couldn't imagine what to do next, and<br />
this was utterly frustrating – another "symphonic”<br />
album (like Supreme Immortal Art),<br />
25<br />
another raw genuine album (like Apokalypse),<br />
another one including acoustic instruments<br />
(like Orkblut), or another album with a constant<br />
3rd guitar (like Channelling…)? In the<br />
years without Abigor we developed our technical<br />
skills, broadened our horizon and<br />
opened up our minds to find new and sharper<br />
ways and means to create art that truly worships<br />
the devil, not just copycat <strong>Metal</strong> with<br />
satanic imagery.<br />
The break and development was absolutely<br />
necessary and natural, not a point where we<br />
suddenly threw everything overboard and<br />
found the (un-)holy grail. Hard work on ourselves,<br />
as characters and musicians, is the<br />
reason why we do what we do now.<br />
TP: This might be harder to grasp maybe<br />
for someone who can only judge your<br />
progression through the various releases,<br />
but I think I understand. Nevertheless, I<br />
remember Peter stating when ABIGOR<br />
split up that he had material already<br />
which was far to advanced for the ungrateful<br />
BM-scene as it was back then.<br />
And now you say development has been<br />
progressed through the years between<br />
Satanized and Fractal Possession…<br />
Which leads me to the thought that<br />
ABIGOR never really split up, more laid<br />
on ice… Am I totally wrong to assume<br />
Fractal Possession seethed beneath the<br />
surface all the years, growing steady- or<br />
have there really been years without
ABIGOR and Fractal Possession is a recent<br />
outburst?<br />
PK: No, ABIGOR was dead, not laid to ice! I<br />
only used a few selected riffs from that "old”<br />
material I wrote from 2003-2005 on Fractal<br />
Possession. I wrote different riffs and songs<br />
of course but not with the idea of the return<br />
of ABIGOR in my back, that all just developed<br />
after I met TT again, back in late 2005…<br />
TT: As I said, Fractal Possession was more or<br />
less <strong>com</strong>posed and recorded in about 8<br />
month, but also incorporated stuff that PK<br />
wrote over a longer period of time. This<br />
doesn't mean anything, we could have also<br />
used new material exclusively, but these riffs<br />
and lyrics were great so why not using them<br />
– what I want to say is it doesn't matter if we<br />
used some "older” riffs or not, at this stage<br />
we do such an album in about 8 month,<br />
that's the point. And, what's the difference at<br />
all? If we needed 10 years or 2 weeks, what<br />
the fuck does this change?<br />
Ch: Concerning image and attitude<br />
ABIGOR always have been Black <strong>Metal</strong> to<br />
the core. You never wanted to be anything<br />
else. Now many people see Fractal<br />
Procession as one of the best <strong>Avantgarde</strong><br />
<strong>Metal</strong> releases of this year. Can<br />
you live with such a definition or do you<br />
still strictly prefer Black <strong>Metal</strong>? Or don’t<br />
you care about such categories at all?<br />
TT: We are Black <strong>Metal</strong> and nothing else,<br />
definitely – music that operates within the or<br />
at least uses many stylistics of <strong>Metal</strong> and has<br />
satanic lyrics is Black <strong>Metal</strong>. Call certain BM<br />
albums <strong>Avantgarde</strong> <strong>Metal</strong>, why not, the<br />
avantgarde of <strong>Metal</strong> music can include Black<br />
<strong>Metal</strong>, and if you look what's called avantgarde<br />
in (post-) classical and Jazz then you're<br />
perfectly right with your definition, it doesn't<br />
seem cheesy or inappropriate at all.<br />
Airbrush-images, sheet metal swords and a<br />
few other relics of the teenage years away<br />
and I view Black <strong>Metal</strong> as a whole in a larger<br />
context – which is art in general. With objective<br />
measurements, take a Dimmu (as example,<br />
not to point out this band, there's thousands<br />
alike!!!) album and you won't find<br />
much music/lyric/artwork-wise that truly<br />
matters, nothing relevant – funny stylish<br />
pictures with millimeter-exact makeup (that<br />
has nothing to do with corpse paint) and embarrassing<br />
clothes, cheesy visual artwork and<br />
cheesy music.<br />
It may be executed in a next to perfect way,<br />
it may be the best <strong>Metal</strong> album of the century,<br />
but as a piece of (satanic) art it's worthless.<br />
It isn't even conceived to be something else<br />
than a <strong>Metal</strong> album, I doubt those people<br />
worship the devil and try to do something<br />
26<br />
un<strong>com</strong>promising. Many Black Rock'n'Roll and<br />
Fantasy <strong>Metal</strong> bands are just in it for the fun,<br />
it's their hobby, or because they're professional<br />
musicians, a "cool job” so to say. In<br />
our case it's different. Let me point out I<br />
don't talk about ridiculous art-school standards<br />
(!!!), but when you hand out an album<br />
to non-<strong>Metal</strong> people you get a good reaction.<br />
Be sure, they will laugh out the average forest-<strong>Metal</strong><br />
cheese. But take a Deathspell<br />
Omega album, take the latest works of<br />
Katharsis, Diapsiquir, Blacklodge, Clandestine<br />
Blaze etc – that's not funny or cheesy, that's<br />
mature, un<strong>com</strong>promising, extreme – not only<br />
for <strong>Metal</strong> standards (<strong>Metal</strong> people can take a<br />
huge portion of cheese) but to people beyond<br />
this scene as well, got my point? Let's take a<br />
stupid example to make my point <strong>com</strong>pletely<br />
clear: Take (your) parents, imagine we're all<br />
early teenagers. Show them a Cradle Of Filth<br />
album, chances they take it serious in any<br />
aspect are zero. Show them a DSO album<br />
and if they understand what they have in<br />
hands they will most likely be worried or anxious.<br />
Serious mature Black <strong>Metal</strong> is just one<br />
form of (satanic) art, but as such it MUST<br />
reek of danger. Otherwise it be<strong>com</strong>es ridiculous<br />
at a certain age. I named Dimmu and<br />
Cradle as random example, but it's definitely<br />
not better in the self-proclaimed true Black<br />
<strong>Metal</strong> underground!<br />
PK: ABIGOR is still Black-<strong>Metal</strong>, and always<br />
will be! The problem is that people are less<br />
open-mined and mainly need strict definition<br />
how it all has to sound, while we don’t. The<br />
essence of our music is Black-<strong>Metal</strong>, it’s<br />
based on spiritual values, not on musical<br />
limitations and images of "black-leathercorpse-painted<br />
want to be like Satanists.”<br />
TP: So, if ABIGOR's priority is to create<br />
satanic art- could you imagine to record<br />
something NOT metal under the name<br />
ABIGOR? Even if you, PK, state that the<br />
base of ABIGOR will always be BM,<br />
wouldn't you be intrigued by the thought<br />
to do some non-metal intermezzi?<br />
PK: Personally I can’t imagine ABIGOR exist-
ing on a "non-<strong>Metal</strong>-based” form because it’s<br />
the essential for me, a main part of ABIGOR.<br />
TT: For me, the field of Black <strong>Metal</strong> leaves<br />
enough space to experiment, we will emphasize<br />
this with our <strong>com</strong>ing releases even more<br />
than we did in the 90s, where we also moved<br />
through a wider range<br />
of musical concepts<br />
from album to album<br />
– this tradition will<br />
definitely be continued<br />
and strengthened.<br />
But Abigor has a certain<br />
definition and a<br />
reason why we do<br />
what we do - it's not<br />
just a tag, a name.<br />
We want to achieve<br />
something, realize<br />
something. It would<br />
have no sense to do a<br />
Neue Musik or Electronic<br />
album and call<br />
it Abigor. From my<br />
point of view after so many years of Black<br />
<strong>Metal</strong>, and at the same time after so many<br />
years of my interests in other musical styles I<br />
think I have a long enough musical history<br />
(as listener and musician) to be sure what<br />
the musical frame for Abigor can be. If I<br />
wouldn't be so widespread with my personal<br />
listening taste then you could assume that<br />
maybe some day new musical interests have<br />
a direct influence on Abigor. But why should I<br />
want to do an electronic Abigor album after<br />
15 years of Abigor and more than 15 years of<br />
listening to electronic music? Got my point?<br />
PK is totally right when he says the base of<br />
Abigor will always be Black <strong>Metal</strong>, I can fully<br />
agree (and as different as our personal musical<br />
preferences are, as close are our vision of<br />
how Abigor has to be).<br />
TP: Fractal Possession in its entirety is<br />
very <strong>com</strong>plex, there is much to discover<br />
even after several listenings - How do<br />
you arrange these songs, especially the<br />
elements which can't be rehearsed?<br />
Does a song appear as a whole in your<br />
minds or does it grow?<br />
PK: The main fact is that we don’t rehearse;<br />
we even don’t have a rehearsal room. I <strong>com</strong>pose<br />
a lot of basical riffs/songstructures/ideas,<br />
the rest is done in the studio.<br />
There was some kind of pre-demoproduction<br />
but there’ve been so much<br />
changes and it all came to life during the<br />
studio work…<br />
TT: We never rehearse anyway, so we can do<br />
whatever we want. No thought wasted on<br />
live-practicability. So far the songs "grew”,<br />
but for our next album we have a certain<br />
27<br />
concept where the pieces have to subordinate<br />
in length, tempo and mood – unlike Fractal<br />
Possession where each song is about as long<br />
as the other and contains every element and<br />
tempo. On the next album, every track has a<br />
different musical purpose.<br />
Ch: That sounds very enthralling. So<br />
you’re aiming to write a kind of concept<br />
album? Will it not just concern the music,<br />
but maybe also the lyrics? Can you tell<br />
us a bit more about it?<br />
PK: I can’t, and if we work similar to "Fractal<br />
Possession” it’s not possible, even I’ve different<br />
songs and ideas finished/and still work on,<br />
it’ll be different, that’s for sure…<br />
TT: The concept has been developed for quite<br />
some time now, but it's AR's mission to write<br />
the actual lyrics now. We need to "synchronize”<br />
lyrics and music for this album, they<br />
won't be interchangeable track-to-track, and<br />
all I can tell you so far is: angels and demons<br />
vs. human soul. Ungracefully because cautiously<br />
said now, as this topic will actually be<br />
presented and<br />
treated like it<br />
never has been<br />
before (in music,<br />
outside a purely<br />
theological background)<br />
but if I tell<br />
you too much<br />
about my personal<br />
approach to this it<br />
wouldn't be a good<br />
idea because AR<br />
has the final say<br />
about what it will<br />
cover and what<br />
not. How I or PK<br />
or even AR would<br />
describe it to you<br />
now could be quite different from the final<br />
shape as it's too early. But of course it will be<br />
written to hopefully receive a glimpse of insight<br />
to Satan's mysteries again, and it will<br />
be based on a strict catholic background<br />
(which incorporates more than enough anyway<br />
if you follow the roots of Christianity,<br />
where it <strong>com</strong>es from, what it adapted).<br />
Ch: Once you described the cooperation<br />
among you as "Data Exchange”. Both of<br />
you used to write riffs and arrangements<br />
alone. And then you met to make songs<br />
out of your single works. Has it been like<br />
this also for "Fractal Procession” or did<br />
you sometimes <strong>com</strong>pose together for it?<br />
PK: It is data-exchange, but in my opinion<br />
that makes our co-operation to something<br />
really special, because none ever knows how<br />
it all will sound when it’s finished. ABIGOR’s<br />
songs undergo some kind of evolution, and
no, we never <strong>com</strong>posed together for the album…<br />
TT: Even more on FP than on the old albums,<br />
you're totally right. In the 90s we didn't write<br />
but at least rehearse the tracks together,<br />
meaning that we met and<br />
played guitar. Now we don't even do<br />
this, we just exchange CDs. For me<br />
it's the only possible way – you can<br />
go right to your musical limits when<br />
you don't have to play and remember<br />
all of it, you can loop a sophisticated/<strong>com</strong>plex<br />
part and work as long<br />
as you reach perfection, on as many<br />
tracks as you want. That's a <strong>com</strong>pletely<br />
new working method. In a<br />
rehearsal room this would hardly be<br />
possible.<br />
More and more I like to see myself<br />
as a <strong>com</strong>poser, not as musician –<br />
playing instruments is necessary but not<br />
what I really like to do. If PK could look into<br />
my mind, read my ideas and play my parts<br />
then I would stop playing instruments. Yet<br />
there's no such thing like a head-to-MIDI<br />
converter that really works.<br />
TP: What should one experience when<br />
listening to ABIGOR? Have your intentions<br />
to deliver a certain impact on the<br />
listeners changed over the years?<br />
PK: Expect nothing, the more intense is the<br />
experience while listening to ABIGOR.<br />
TT: The listener should get a certain rush of<br />
emotions, like I also have when I listen to our<br />
music. You can't be more specific than this,<br />
because 1. music is 100% connected to the<br />
<strong>com</strong>poser, meaning it's utterly personal and 2.<br />
the history and (personal as well as musical)<br />
experience of the listener determines his/her<br />
listening sensation to a certain degree. Yet<br />
there are universal feelings, a collective sub<br />
consciousness, and the obvious predictable<br />
reaction to certain sounds, noises, harmonies,<br />
dynamics – I mean, in a dissonant fast part<br />
one wouldn't be relaxed and let the mind drift.<br />
You can increase intensity and excitement,<br />
that's what we consciously do of course. Of<br />
course you can try to influence the listener,<br />
but that's not the case with our music which<br />
we write exclusively for ourselves at the moment<br />
of it's creation. After the work is done<br />
of course we think about the listener as well.<br />
I value the support of our listeners (and I do<br />
appreciate it a lot!), but I can't "waste” a<br />
single thought during the <strong>com</strong>position.<br />
If you intended to get a <strong>com</strong>ment about the<br />
"war against Christianity” with your question,<br />
well, no <strong>com</strong>ment, hehehe… By the way: the<br />
pope just proclaimed in an interview that he<br />
doesn't see the future of Christianity as a<br />
28<br />
"folk religion”/religion of the <strong>com</strong>mon man,<br />
but a deterministic force that shapes Europe's<br />
culture. Think about this, I like it – it would<br />
shock the average Sunday-church-visitors to<br />
the core if you tell them what the pope really<br />
means with it. I think he, as an<br />
intellectual theologian, scorns his<br />
own followers, which is quiet a<br />
satanic thought.<br />
TP: No, I didn't intend to get<br />
<strong>com</strong>ments on Christians but<br />
nevertheless an interesting<br />
thought on the pope, hehe. If<br />
people would start using their<br />
heads they would maybe <strong>com</strong>e<br />
to the same conclusion as you.<br />
It IS satanic to scorn someone<br />
who doesn't want to think for<br />
himself, being led by someone<br />
instead of using his own given<br />
freedom. And the pope would<br />
do that by using his followers as instruments<br />
in politics through his given<br />
power. A satanic pope- I guess I like<br />
that, too.<br />
You have made a statement on "Nachthymnen”<br />
which I believe to be a measure<br />
to separate these people from your<br />
music: "The music of ABIGOR is a<br />
weapon and shall haunt all those who<br />
try to discover something beautiful in<br />
it!” Yet I see a contradiction in this<br />
statement as I try to understand it. Obviously,<br />
if someone only seeks beautiful<br />
and happy music he/she would stay<br />
away from ABIGOR, not labelling you as<br />
"beautiful”. But, if anyone sees beauty in<br />
your dark and hostile atmospheres,<br />
wouldn't the weapon ABIGOR fail to<br />
haunt this person for he/she gains exactly<br />
the pleasure from these twisted<br />
moods in your music you want to deny<br />
him/her? So, how was that meant? Or<br />
has this statement be<strong>com</strong>e obsolete<br />
nowadays perhaps?<br />
TT: People that pinned down the sound of<br />
Abigor to the "beautiful” elements of Nachthymnen<br />
were confused (to say the least) as<br />
they bought Opus IV and Apokalypse - the<br />
albums that were weapons that haunted the<br />
Goths that only loved Nachthymnen (out of<br />
all our works), you see what we meant.<br />
Ch: Back in the year 1994 your debut<br />
album "Verwuestung – Invoke the Dark<br />
Age” has been the very first bestseller of<br />
Napalm Records. Without Abigor probably<br />
the fast growth of Napalm in their<br />
early years wouldn’t have been possible.<br />
You released around 10 albums on this<br />
label and have been quite close friends<br />
with labelboss Max for a long time. What<br />
can you tell us about your relationship
with Napalm? Why did you decide to<br />
leave them?<br />
TT: Yes, I respected and liked Max a lot back<br />
then. I was involved with Napalm as much as<br />
it gets over that distance (Vienna – Eisenerz),<br />
you surely remember those times. But Max<br />
changed, and although I had a quite unsteady<br />
and unreliable time and haven't been<br />
the best business partner, he changed in a<br />
way that's not acceptable in my opinion, on a<br />
personal as well as artistic (a label deals with<br />
art/music) level. It's a pity, those times back<br />
then were a pleasure – recently I have seen<br />
the With Us Or Against Us album at someone's<br />
flat and read the statements and looked<br />
at the booklet, a nostalgic moment, but<br />
there's no looking back.<br />
Max operates on another level<br />
now, he does music business<br />
and has nothing to do with<br />
Black <strong>Metal</strong> or art, I mean Napalm<br />
and EAL/NED are two<br />
<strong>com</strong>pletely different worlds,<br />
even the reason why each label<br />
releases albums.<br />
Finally we found a way to clear<br />
up our problems to a degree<br />
where both parties can live with<br />
it and continue to work with<br />
Napalm for our back catalogue.<br />
My main concern is that we get<br />
high quality vinyl releases of<br />
our old albums.<br />
PK: There’s no relationship<br />
anymore, they’ve their "labelphilosophy”,<br />
we’ve ours, our<br />
ways separated, there’s no more to say about<br />
it, nor are we allowed at the moment…<br />
Ch: Thomas, you left Abigor in the end of<br />
1999. In the meantime Peter has done<br />
two more Abigor releases and worked on<br />
several projects like Hellbound and St.<br />
Lucifer. What have you done music wise<br />
during these years?<br />
TT: 2 more? In Memory was put together<br />
when I still did Abigor (although I was gone<br />
by the time it was released when I it remember<br />
right) and the 7” includes a track from<br />
Channelling on the B side, so I thought Satanized<br />
is the main release that PK did with<br />
other people.<br />
I released nothing, I concentrated on audio<br />
engineering, did some recordings but mainly<br />
to learn all the new technology and equipment.<br />
I didn't have the plan to release anything,<br />
or even create something where I<br />
could fully identify with it that would stand<br />
for my heart and soul in public. I did some<br />
29<br />
electronic tracks, the best way to learn software<br />
and mixdown, because 50+ audio-<br />
&MIDI-tracks of all kinds of synthetic and<br />
acoustic sounds teach you to do a proper<br />
mixdown and use your hardware right.<br />
Ch: TT, you have be<strong>com</strong>e a real expert in<br />
audio engineering and also built up your<br />
own studio. Can you tell us more about<br />
it? What gear do you use? What kind of<br />
bands / music have you produced there<br />
so far?<br />
TT: Studer 963 console, Neumann M149/AKG<br />
C414/EV RE20 as the most often used mics,<br />
mainly outboard gear to "create the sound”<br />
(Focusrite Red 3 <strong>com</strong>pressor, Universal Audio<br />
6176 channel strip, Culture Vulture valve<br />
processor, TLA EQ 2, several<br />
all-analogue effects like<br />
tapedelay, phaser, chorus,<br />
filter etc) and about 200qm for<br />
a relaxed working atmosphere<br />
with one side of the rooms<br />
having many windows on the<br />
first floor of an old factory. A<br />
dark cellar would sound appropriate<br />
for Black <strong>Metal</strong> but really,<br />
for full days of concentrated<br />
engineering I prefer daylight<br />
and enough space. Asmodeus<br />
& Vobiscum recorded and/or<br />
mixed there, I did several<br />
"mastering” kind of works (although<br />
I usually don't offer<br />
mastering as I work with a<br />
professional hi-end mastering<br />
studio and a recording/<br />
mixdown studio can never<br />
offer what a 100% mastering<br />
studio with specialized mastering engineers<br />
can offer), and of course all kinds of "jobs”<br />
like voices for adds, recording and mixdown<br />
for all kinds of music, not <strong>Metal</strong>.<br />
I didn't see it in connection with my artistic<br />
work, the studio is open even for the most<br />
stupid Schlagermusik, I make no difference. I<br />
try to make the best out of the job, if that's<br />
HipHop (which artistically I can't stand, a<br />
style I utterly scorn) or <strong>Metal</strong> doesn't matter<br />
to me – I just hear frequencies and see settings<br />
on my gear, and improving the source<br />
with my engineering work is my job, and if I<br />
did (make something sound good) I succeeded,<br />
I don't have to like the music at all.<br />
Ch: Now after recording "Fractal Procession”<br />
in your own studio, could you ever<br />
imagine to record in the infamous Hoernix<br />
Studio again? I mean you’ve recorded<br />
plenty of albums there and also<br />
brought lots of metal bands to this place.<br />
Still Hoernix has never been a metal studio<br />
at all…
TT: Hörnix was good and fast in recording<br />
drums, but the engineer gave no input at all<br />
– and we surely acted stupid as well, we<br />
thought we know how it MUST be, we wanted<br />
to say how the guitar mics are positioned,<br />
how to EQ something etc although we had<br />
not the slightest clue about audio engineering.<br />
And, we destroyed the often ok recordings in<br />
the mixdown altogether (band and engineer)<br />
in the end. So, I can't blame the Hörnix guy<br />
alone if something sounded bad – if we didn't<br />
say a word and let him record and mix alone<br />
the result would have been better maybe,<br />
that's my view today – and I see the same in<br />
my studio, young bands <strong>com</strong>e and want<br />
things so and so and not a millimeter different.<br />
But a skilled engineer can show people why<br />
and how it would be better NOT to do it <strong>com</strong>pletely<br />
the band's way. The Hörnix guy at<br />
least was guilty of letting us do what we want<br />
and didn't show us how to get a better result.<br />
Anyway, of course I have <strong>com</strong>pletely different<br />
equipment and learned like mad to be a serious<br />
engineer, so I can't imagine ANYTHING<br />
else. There's no alternative anyway, I couldn't<br />
book another studio because <strong>com</strong>position<br />
and recording is one blurred process, I need<br />
months "in the studio” for an album (to <strong>com</strong>pose/improve<br />
as well as record/mix)…<br />
Ch: Back in the 1990ies you didn’t like<br />
side projects at all. Now you are working<br />
together with Zweizz for some songs and<br />
also rumours about cooperation with<br />
Mikael of Den Saakaldte are around. Can<br />
you tell us more about it?<br />
TT: I don't remember that we were against<br />
collaborations at all in the 90s. Both contacts<br />
were made by PK. PK always had side projects,<br />
even in the demo period and later with<br />
Heidenreich.<br />
PK: ABIGOR / ZWEIZZ is no side-project at<br />
all, Sven just sent use some weird electoronical<br />
sounds(noise) we’ll use on the up<strong>com</strong>ing<br />
ABIGOR/BLACKLODGE 7”/MCD.<br />
Concerning DEN SAAKALDTE I’ll maybe do a<br />
few riffs, or 1 song for an up<strong>com</strong>ing album,<br />
it’s no project, just an experiment, as I already<br />
did for BLACK-FLAME for example. So<br />
at least, there’re no side-projects, experiments<br />
and co-operation between old friends,<br />
yes.<br />
Ch: Okay, the interview is nearly finished.<br />
Thanks a lot, TT and PK, for this splendid<br />
view into the world of Abigor. Before we<br />
close, could you please dedicate a few<br />
words to your future? Did you already<br />
start the work for the forth<strong>com</strong>ing album<br />
that you’ve mentioned? Are you going to<br />
30<br />
shoot out new masterpieces as fast as<br />
you did in the 1990ies? Any last words?<br />
TT: Yes, the work for the next album already<br />
started and we could imagine a multitude of<br />
interesting ways how to achieve steady excitement<br />
for us concerning the music of<br />
Abigor, so the next few albums won't need<br />
centuries to be written and released - but<br />
how many albums this will be is not what I<br />
can tell you at this stage. There's no doubt<br />
about the lyrical/conceptual continuity which<br />
is guaranteed as long as we care about spirituality,<br />
as long as we worship the devil (this<br />
means the lyrical and conceptual side of<br />
Abigor can be continued for centuries no matter<br />
what our personal musical state is). But<br />
the music will end when there's nothing more<br />
to say. If that's in 5 albums or in 50, who<br />
could say… in humbleness I pray to be<br />
granted inspiration.
FLEURETY<br />
Far Away From Any Messianic Complex<br />
By Olivier Côté<br />
Well, well, here I am, interviewing one of the<br />
most underrated and underground pioneering<br />
metal bands, whom were always mostly<br />
known by name and reputation but almost<br />
never through their one-of-a-kind musical<br />
quality. Listening to the actual everexpanding<br />
avant-garde metal scene, one has<br />
to admit to the fact that they actually had an<br />
impact on its development as a genre. Soon<br />
enough I got in touch with their band coach<br />
singer, drummer, lyricist, synthesizer and<br />
piano man Svein-Evil Hatlevik, a most honest,<br />
laid-back and intelligent everyday journalist.<br />
Along the way I was even given a chance to<br />
hear a post-1998 recording of a new Fleurety<br />
song, which is aptly called The Animal of the<br />
City. I immediately sat down deep into my<br />
sofa, plugged in my headphones and started<br />
the song at a very high volume. What a<br />
shock! Could this be Fleurety at all? It most<br />
certainly is! However, once I got used to it,<br />
this experience made me remember that ever<br />
since I discovered this band, I’ve truly never<br />
been able to predict what would be their next<br />
disguises. For now, have a seat and discover<br />
the unstable world of Fleurety.<br />
Hey Svein-Egil! Let’s hope everything is<br />
fine on your side of the European<br />
ground; anyway, wherever you are, a<br />
sunny and warm summer is always a<br />
wel<strong>com</strong>e treat, right. Well I would like to<br />
take this opportunity to explore in details<br />
such a delicate subject as Fleurety,<br />
the now cult experimental band you and<br />
31<br />
Alexander Nordgaren both gave birth to.<br />
Ever since the year 2000, just after the<br />
release of Dept. of Apocalyptic Affairs,<br />
an album that took everyone by surprise<br />
with its refreshing twists of mind, absolutely<br />
nothing seemed to happen in your<br />
camp. The momentum slowly faded<br />
away so to speak. Why was that?<br />
Any hurt feelings about that last album?<br />
No more inspirations? Of course we<br />
probably all know how Hatlevik kept on<br />
going with DHG and Zweizz, but Nordgaren<br />
all of a sudden musically disappeared,<br />
heading off to India and other<br />
exotic parts of the world. Between 2000<br />
and 2005, what were then your feelings<br />
about Fleurety and its artistic ac<strong>com</strong>plishments<br />
thus far?<br />
Well, first thing is that summer here in Oslo<br />
is the rainiest ever since they started scientific<br />
measurements of the amount of rain in<br />
18-twenty-something. Anyway, I was a little<br />
surprised to see that nothing happened with<br />
Fleurety after the Department of Apocalyptic<br />
Affairs album. I was still making songs that I<br />
intended to be Fleurety songs, but nothing<br />
really happened. So it took me a while to<br />
understand that the band was in a hiatus.<br />
In fact, both the songs of the Zweizz 7" Black<br />
Necrotic Obfuscation<br />
(Vendlus Records 2004)<br />
were originally intended<br />
from my side to be<br />
Fleurety songs when I<br />
started making them. I<br />
programmed some beats<br />
and some synth stuff, and<br />
I did nothing more about<br />
them, since I assumed<br />
that Alex would add some<br />
guitars. Then all of a sudden<br />
three years had<br />
passed, and there were<br />
still no guitars, so I decided<br />
to finish the songs<br />
myself. Anyway, I was<br />
very happy about the<br />
Department of Apocalyptic<br />
Affairs album, but lately<br />
(last five years or something)<br />
I've <strong>com</strong>e to the<br />
understanding that Alex<br />
wasn't too happy with that album. So well, I<br />
have no problem with that.<br />
Now it's more like I continue one thread with<br />
Zweizz, the electronic experimental one from<br />
Department of Apocalyptic Affairs. But as I<br />
see it Fleurety as it works these days is following<br />
another thread that goes back to our<br />
very first demo, and the years that followed,<br />
with Min Tid Skal Komme. That kind of material,<br />
that kind of mentality. That's OK with me
now, but I don't think I would have felt too<br />
<strong>com</strong>fortable about this in, say, 2004. I was a<br />
little embarrassed about the old Fleurety stuff<br />
at that time, like Min Tid Skal Komme and A<br />
Darker Shade of Evil, but in recent years I've<br />
started enjoying that stuff. I can very well<br />
put on Min Tid Skal Komme today and enjoy<br />
it. (But not too often, mind you!!!) I wouldn't<br />
have been able to do those five years ago.<br />
You appear to be preparing a special<br />
<strong>com</strong>eback with the release of a 7” on<br />
Duplicate Records which will basically<br />
only contain re-recordings of two older<br />
tracks. I always thought that, as an artist,<br />
going through material from the<br />
vault was like admitting to some sort of<br />
a lack of inspiration regarding your present-day<br />
creativity. Was this an easier<br />
way to get back on track after all these<br />
years, in order to get a grasp of what<br />
Fleurety once has been and therefore<br />
should be nowadays?<br />
Hm. We had to find another label to release<br />
this 7", because of all the usual reasons.<br />
Fleurety is cursed with label <strong>com</strong>plications,<br />
we've been since 1993, so well. We actually<br />
made a deal with our very first record label<br />
Aesthetic Death Records, who released our A<br />
Darker Shade of Evil 7“, EP in 1994 and coreleased<br />
Min Tid Skal Komme with Misanthropy<br />
Records in 1995. This label is also<br />
releasing the vinyl version of Min Tid Skal<br />
Komme this autumn. We might be talking<br />
November. This version will feature the A<br />
Darker Shade of Evil EP and our very first<br />
demo Black Snow that we released in 1993.<br />
So let's see what happens and when it happens.<br />
Anyway, when it <strong>com</strong>es to your question<br />
about "going through material from the vault<br />
was like admitting to some sort of a lack of<br />
inspiration regarding your present-day creativity",<br />
I agree. But I don't think that kind of<br />
thinking applies to Fleurety. If we were an<br />
active band, like Darkthrone or whatever, it<br />
would be an entirely different situation. But<br />
for a lot of years (1998-2005) we weren't<br />
really an active band, so re-recording old<br />
material is more like a way to get back on<br />
track, some kind of way to reawaken the<br />
dead. But as I said: Fleurety got lost, I guess<br />
in some kind of fog of experimentation,<br />
where the members of the band kinda lost<br />
sight of each other.<br />
So I think it is better to keep things clear,<br />
and fuck all that experimental shit. I make<br />
experimental music all day, so I don't really<br />
need Fleurety to fulfil that function. We're<br />
never going to sound like your usual metal<br />
band anyway, no matter how hard we try. So<br />
it's more important to keep the band alive, I<br />
32<br />
think, than being all visionary and shit. I<br />
mean, it's cool to be visionary, but we need<br />
to keep this band a social unit as well, that<br />
brings people together. We've been doing this<br />
as two people all these years, and we need to<br />
keep doing this as at least two people.<br />
Otherwise it wouldn't be Fleurety.<br />
Let’s return for the last time ever to your<br />
almost entirely unknown and unpublicized<br />
last album, Dept. of Apocalyptic<br />
Affairs. One could obviously argue that<br />
this was a total <strong>com</strong>mercial nightmarish<br />
fiasco, as I do remember how impossible<br />
it was to get my hands on it back to the<br />
day of its official release. Now what was<br />
Supernal Music’s initial reaction to the<br />
musical <strong>com</strong>positions that you guys gave<br />
them? And nine years after its conception,<br />
are you sometimes still able to give<br />
it a few spins?<br />
Last time ever? That sounds kinda dramatic.<br />
As far as I know, the guy who runs Supernal<br />
Music really liked the album, but I assume<br />
that kind of music is not so easy to sell. On<br />
the other hand, I don't really suspect him of<br />
having tried. The album has been out of print<br />
for more than five years, and Supernal still<br />
hasn't released that second edition that he's<br />
been talking about for years. And in a way,<br />
that's fine by me. The problem is that he<br />
doesn't want anyone else to release it either,<br />
which by my standards makes him a capitalist<br />
pig.<br />
Could you please present the line-ups<br />
that you’re going to use for your up<strong>com</strong>ing<br />
7”, and just say how you think that<br />
they might have altered the way you<br />
both <strong>com</strong>pose together? Why did you<br />
specifically choose these guys to play<br />
with?<br />
There are two different line-ups for the songs
from the 7": One consists of Runhild Gammelsæter<br />
(Vocals), Alexander Nordgaren<br />
(Guitars), Necrobutcher (Bass), Hellhammer<br />
(Drums) and me as more or less a producer<br />
or band coach. The song is a re-recording of<br />
a song off our Black Snow demo. The reason<br />
we chose to do this song with Runhild is that<br />
she's the only woman I know who was really<br />
around when the Norwegian black metal underground<br />
existed and who would know how<br />
to do that kind of vocals. I initially asked the<br />
pretty well known Norwegian singer Maja<br />
Ratkje, and she was about to say yes, but<br />
she wanted money - she does these things<br />
for a living, whereas Runhild works as a biochemistry<br />
engineer, so she's pretty well off.<br />
And she was really enthusiastic about this<br />
project too.<br />
And somehow I have this notion that black<br />
metal should not be made by professionals. I<br />
honestly don't think that black metal should<br />
be someone's way to put bread on the table.<br />
It might have worked in a non-capitalist society,<br />
but then again I doubt black metal would<br />
ever <strong>com</strong>e into existence in a non-capitalist<br />
society. Or to be more specific: I have yet to<br />
hear a great black metal album made by<br />
people who play black metal for a living. Except,<br />
perhaps, Ordo Ad Chao by Mayhem. But<br />
I'm not sure yet if that album is really soooo<br />
great. Time will tell.<br />
But as things turned out, I'm really glad we<br />
ended up doing this with Runhild, because for<br />
her it seemed like it was a journey through<br />
the time gate back to 1993. I didn't have to<br />
explain anything to her; she already knew<br />
what we were looking for intuitively. I remember<br />
I called her on the phone, asking if<br />
she wanted to do some vocals for us, she<br />
said: "Yeah, sure. I used to listen a lot to that<br />
demo back in the days." It was that Stephen<br />
O'Malley guy who made that tape for her.<br />
Now he's some kind of rock star, and we're<br />
still a well kept secret. Things really do<br />
change in ten years.<br />
33<br />
Anyway, I'm digressing here: So then we met<br />
a couple of times, discussing back and forth<br />
to make sure that my intuition was correct:<br />
That she knew how to do exactly what we<br />
needed her to do. When it <strong>com</strong>es to Hellhammer<br />
and Necro Butcher, they are old<br />
buddies. They are Alex's buddies first and<br />
foremost, since he used to play with them in<br />
Mayhem, so that was more of the typical<br />
"Guy <strong>com</strong>es back from some faraway place,<br />
wants to meet up with his buddies and have<br />
a jam".<br />
The other side of the 7" has Petter of<br />
Audiopain and Virus playing the bass and<br />
Bjørge from bands such as Yurei and Rex<br />
playing the drums. This song has a more<br />
punk attitude I guess, so I think Fleurety is in<br />
its most testosterous phase ever these days.<br />
Considering where you guys <strong>com</strong>e from,<br />
I see Fleurety as at least one of the first<br />
Norwegian black metal related bands to<br />
have somewhat introduced a humoristic,<br />
twisted colorful touch deep into the usually<br />
black-and-white, down-to-earth<br />
world of despair and suicidal teenage<br />
aspirations that black metal came to be<br />
associated with. I’m of course not saying<br />
that Fleurety was a joke in itself, far<br />
from that actually – but do you think<br />
that, in a sense, a good laugh in your<br />
case functioned as a first-hand antidote<br />
to step out of the black metal rigid and<br />
authoritarian structures?<br />
Well, if there is something we learned from<br />
the nineties, it was that it's no problem being<br />
tongue in cheek and dead serious at the<br />
same time. That's what the nineties were all<br />
about, at least in Norwegian popular culture,<br />
and I guess a lot of other places. If you see it<br />
this way, Fleurety is a typical child of its time.<br />
That said, we were dead serious all the time<br />
way into 1995, and perhaps even longer. Hm,<br />
it's hard to remember really. But we've never<br />
had an expressed agenda of "bringing humor<br />
into black metal". I mean, we don't suffer<br />
from a messianic <strong>com</strong>plex.<br />
But sometime after 1994 all the makeup,<br />
social intrigues and talking about hate and<br />
darkness began sounding hollow. And it still<br />
does. So in 1996 we were all about leaving<br />
the sinking ship and make some other kind of<br />
music. I'm really glad we never made any<br />
black metal in the late nineties with Fleurety.<br />
In my opinion there is only one good black<br />
metal album from the late nineties, and that<br />
is 666 International. I don't think we would<br />
have made a black metal album with Fleurety<br />
that would have been even half as good as<br />
that.
You’ve collaborated before with both<br />
Czral-Michael and Yusaf Parvez from<br />
Virus and DHG fame, be it on a lyrical or<br />
a musical level, and by my standards,<br />
both Virus (VBE) and Fleurety do share<br />
at least a few similarities in atmosphere.<br />
What were your relations back in 1995<br />
and were you guys all perceived as some<br />
sort of pariahs by the overall "scene”?<br />
You seem to be good friend with Czral-<br />
Michael in particular; would it therefore<br />
be possible that either you or he collaborate<br />
with the other and vice versa in the<br />
future? I’m obviously pointing my fingers<br />
towards the next Virus album...<br />
I remember very well the day when Yusaf<br />
played the entire Those Who Caress The Pale<br />
tape over the telephone. That was in 1994, I<br />
think. That's one thing nobody would do<br />
these days. There were close relations between<br />
Fleurety and Ved Buens Ende back<br />
then. At one point we discussed whether<br />
Yusaf should join Fleurety as a permanent<br />
guitarist. Ved Buens Ende had good relations<br />
with all of the other bands around, with some<br />
very few exceptions. We were less popular.<br />
So I remember Yusaf in particular being<br />
somewhat of a devil's advocate on our behalf.<br />
Yusaf and Carl-Michael were also a part of<br />
the Fleurety live line-up for a show in 1995 or<br />
1996, can't really remember which year exactly.<br />
When Tiziana who ran Misanthropy<br />
Records came over to visit us in 1994, we<br />
played the Those Who Caress The Pale tape<br />
to her, which led to Ved Buens Ende releasing<br />
Written In Waters on said record label.<br />
These days, relations are less intimate, but<br />
yes: I will play some minor role on the new<br />
Virus album, participating with some lyrics<br />
and possibly more stuff as well. Czral also<br />
borrowed some photos I had lying around,<br />
34<br />
and they might be used in<br />
the layout of the new album.<br />
I assume you'd want<br />
me to reveal more details<br />
about the up<strong>com</strong>ing Virus<br />
album, but I don't really<br />
know much more.<br />
Oh and now that we’re<br />
exploring your cult past,<br />
what did really happen<br />
between you and Ulver<br />
back in 1993-1994? I<br />
remember reading in<br />
their Vargnatt’s liner<br />
notes how you Fleurety<br />
were nothing. Quite<br />
rude to say the least!<br />
Now what was wrong<br />
with the G-Man?<br />
I don't think there is much to say about this.<br />
If I were to explain this, I would get it all<br />
wrong, because I don't remember the details<br />
or what was the reason for anything. We've<br />
been good friends for at least ten years now.<br />
Fleurety, the band’s name, not only is<br />
connected to the actual name of a demon,<br />
but also concerns the psychedelic<br />
substances he’s known to be giving a<br />
form to. Would you dare claim that the<br />
more psychedelic bands of Norwegian<br />
black metal, at least in the nineties,<br />
somehow came to experimentation<br />
through the use of chemicals and other<br />
sense-expanding substances?<br />
I'll confine myself to talking about hallucinogens<br />
here: I'm not really sure about how<br />
much of this went on. I don't know too much<br />
about other people's use of these kinds of<br />
substances, though I know certain members<br />
of DHG used to be very heavily into that. I<br />
took some substances like this on various<br />
occasions, but that wasn't until the very late<br />
nineties, like around 1999.<br />
You said somewhere else that Fleurety<br />
will be taking a more stripped down approach<br />
to music on your (for now only)<br />
hypothetical next sonic adventure, going<br />
as far as to claim that an up<strong>com</strong>ing lowfi<br />
sounding full-length album wouldn’t<br />
be out of place. What is so appealing<br />
about that kind of minimalism? Do you<br />
believe that you could regress to a onedimensional,<br />
sordid black void world of<br />
sounds, or are you once again taking the<br />
piss at us? Jussi Lehtisalo from Krypt<br />
Axeripper fame recently said that "regressive<br />
is tomorrow’s progressive”. Is<br />
that a musical philosophy you’d like to<br />
explore further within Fleurety?
Dunno who Jussi Lehtisalo might be, but I've<br />
never liked statements about how "X is the<br />
new Y". Experimental is the new mundane.<br />
Silent is the new loud. Nerd is the new black.<br />
Bread is the new cookie. Old is the new new.<br />
Obesity is the new plague. And so on. Fucking<br />
trendspotters. Obviously, if you're interested<br />
in exploring new ground, you'll know<br />
that as soon as someone identifies whatever<br />
it is you're doing as the "new cool thing", it's<br />
time to move on to something else. Otherwise<br />
you'll risk being run over by all the<br />
clowns who have just jumped on the band<br />
wagon. Not a pretty sight, I can assure you.<br />
So well, as I was talking<br />
about earlier: At the moment<br />
Fleurety works in an entirely<br />
different way than it did ten<br />
years ago. These days<br />
Fleurety is more or less a<br />
time portal that opens once<br />
every year when Alex <strong>com</strong>es<br />
back from England or India or<br />
Canada or Rumania or wherever<br />
he might be working at<br />
the time. That means we<br />
have to work quickly. We<br />
don't have any time to hesitate,<br />
no time for discussions.<br />
We would typically have one<br />
day to record a song, that's it.<br />
So if there's anything we<br />
planned to do, that we didn't<br />
get time to do, and that<br />
would usually mean that you'll have to wait<br />
another year until the time portal opens once<br />
more. So how do you solve this? We make<br />
the kind of music we know best: Simple<br />
primitive black metal. It's a question of survival.<br />
If we had insisted on being "experimental",<br />
"avant-garde" or "sophisticated",<br />
we'd be dead.<br />
But I don't think we'll ever enter a "onedimensional,<br />
sordid black void world of<br />
sounds". I just put on our first recording of<br />
new material since 1998, a song called The<br />
Animal Of The City, and yes, it is in fact recorded<br />
on a Tascam Portastudio, the same<br />
type of equipment that we used for recording<br />
our first demo way back in 1993. But it is in<br />
fact also an electro-acoustic experiment with<br />
old school recording equipment, rather than<br />
just two thirty year old guys trying to be<br />
teenagers again. So in some sense I'm contradicting<br />
myself here. Or to be precise: I'm<br />
demonstrating why this new Fleurety material<br />
is not one-dimensional. Because what might<br />
be correct along one axis, is not correct along<br />
some other axis. Thus our music is at least<br />
two-dimensional.<br />
Oh yeah, I can clearly hear that this stuff<br />
has got a multiple personality symptom<br />
35<br />
going on. You guys are now less messing<br />
with tricky progressive riffing and more<br />
playing with layers and layers of white<br />
noise through what sounds like a static<br />
but massive wall of guitars. You mentioned<br />
Stephen O’Malley earlier on, and I<br />
would like to know your opinion about<br />
what he and his label mates are doing<br />
with (black) metal in general. Is that the<br />
genre’s future gateway?<br />
Hm. As a person who used to study digital<br />
signal processing at the university, I always<br />
end up feeling somewhat un<strong>com</strong>fortable<br />
when people use the term "white<br />
noise" about signals that aren't<br />
white noise. White noise is energy<br />
distributed evenly all over<br />
the frequency spectrum, and is<br />
quite possibly the least interesting<br />
kind of noise there is. It<br />
sounds very much like the sound<br />
you get when you turn on your<br />
TV without it being tuned in to<br />
any specific channel. The noise<br />
you'll hear on that song <strong>com</strong>es<br />
from <strong>com</strong>puter processing, from<br />
sending the song through a portastudio<br />
several times and some<br />
of it is differences in signal phase<br />
that turns into noise when it's<br />
layered a certain number of<br />
times. So that was today's lecture.<br />
You'll not gonna hear me talking about who is<br />
"the future of the genre", I don't like that<br />
kind of speculations. But I know for sure that<br />
bands that work hard get somewhere.<br />
SunnO))) have been working hard, therefore<br />
they've <strong>com</strong>e somewhere. Fleurety, by contrast,<br />
never really used to work that hard.<br />
That is, we took our music very seriously, but<br />
none of us really had any serious ambition of<br />
be<strong>com</strong>ing "rock stars". So we hardly ever<br />
used to play live, we never toured, but we<br />
seized the opportunity to get our music out to<br />
people on CDs. And I guess that's as far as<br />
our ambitions went.<br />
My experience with SunnO))) is through their<br />
live performances, which I think are very<br />
good. They played here in Oslo a couple of<br />
years ago, and I got the feeling that their<br />
tour was a black mass on wheels. Most black<br />
metal bands would die to do a concert as<br />
powerful as that, but they're stuck with the<br />
rock concert format, not being able to think<br />
outside of the box. I have some records with<br />
them too, but I never really came to the<br />
point where I would listen to them more than<br />
once or twice. But I like the way these people<br />
make the music more physical, in the sense<br />
that it appeals not only to the ears, but to<br />
your gut as well. But I guess I'm more inter-
ested in this stuff because of their ideas than<br />
because of their music. If I want to listen to<br />
people who work frequencies with their music,<br />
I tend to prefer more typical noise acts such<br />
as Lasse Marhaug or Kevin Drumm.<br />
And by the way, what is Alexander doing<br />
around the globe? Is that a matter of a<br />
job-related mission, or is the man only<br />
very keen on exploring as many countries<br />
as he possibly can?<br />
These days he works in Rumania with some<br />
<strong>com</strong>puter game developing <strong>com</strong>pany. Other<br />
places he's lived have been either education<br />
or work.<br />
Have you ever heard anything of his I<br />
Left The Planet side-project that we’ve<br />
all read about but unfortunately never<br />
were able to listen to? Was it any good?<br />
I think the I Left The Planet recording<br />
came out quite successful.<br />
They recorded three songs in 1997,<br />
I think. But this recording has not<br />
yet been released. It would be cool<br />
if it were to be released some time.<br />
I guess that interested labels ought<br />
to get in touch with Alex about this.<br />
He has a MySpace profile, and there<br />
is a link to it from the Fleurety profile.<br />
Being the prime lyricist in the<br />
band must be a handful job to<br />
go through. What are you<br />
nowadays trying to say when<br />
using the pen? Is there a field<br />
of thought and of styles that<br />
you fleuretilly feel at home<br />
with? What’s on your mind,<br />
man?<br />
I don't write that many Fleurety lyrics these<br />
days. I was really active ten years ago, but<br />
now I make a living out of writing as a journalist.<br />
Therefore I rarely sit down and write in<br />
my spare time like I used to. The Fleurety<br />
lyrics are to a great extent influenced by 20th<br />
36<br />
century writers such as Samuel Beckett, William<br />
Burroughs, Franz Kafka and Virginia<br />
Woolf. At that time (1992-1999) I was pretty<br />
much fucked up mentally, and the last thing I<br />
wanted was to write lyrics about how fucked<br />
up I felt. But in fact that was more or less the<br />
only thing I was able to write about. So in<br />
some lyrics I go to great lengths trying to<br />
make the lyrics be about absolutely nothing,<br />
but more like an abstract painting made out<br />
of words, and also play on the musical aspects<br />
of each word. This may sound like a<br />
very obvious thing to do if you're into literature<br />
and poetry, but my impression is that<br />
this way of working is not so usual if you<br />
write song lyrics for a metal band.<br />
But if I would try to visualize the Fleurety<br />
lyrics, it would look like maybe the entrance<br />
of the emergency room on a hospital, where<br />
each new patient is the lyrics for one song.<br />
The Fleurety lyrics I've written recently have<br />
been put together by samples from things<br />
I've written as a journalist. I take a phrase<br />
here and a sentence there from articles I've<br />
written in magazines or newspapers. And if<br />
you put that together you get some kind of<br />
distorted image of what's happening in the<br />
world today.<br />
Would you now say that after having<br />
released the new 7” EP, Fleurety has<br />
enough material to potentially start the<br />
recordings for a new album?<br />
Hahaha. No way.<br />
Since we are driving this<br />
interview for a webzine<br />
primarily concerned with<br />
avant-garde metal in general,<br />
I’ve got to ask you one<br />
thing: how do you feel<br />
about the actual metal<br />
scene? Is it diversified<br />
enough to your own tastes<br />
or is there still a whole lot<br />
to do in order to reach its<br />
full potential? What is<br />
avant-garde and what is<br />
not for both the <strong>com</strong>poser<br />
and the listener inside you?<br />
The last couple of years I've<br />
been listening more and more<br />
to new metal acts. And<br />
through MySpace I've had the<br />
pleasure of having been in<br />
contact with a good number of them as well.<br />
I was surprised to hear the new Abigor album,<br />
for instance. I really liked that. I've also been<br />
checking out bands such as Joey Hopkins'<br />
Midget Factory, Bergraven, Blackdrone Inc.,<br />
Yurei, Execration, Vrolok, Organ: and lots<br />
more that I can't remember right now.
I had this very interesting experience a couple<br />
of years ago. I was sharing an apartment<br />
with a couple of friends, and one guy moved,<br />
so we needed a new guy to move in. So it<br />
appeared that this new guy who'd just moved<br />
in was playing in a band called Nidingr. So he<br />
gave me a CD with his band and wanted me<br />
to listen to it, and I thought "Oh no, this is<br />
probably gonna suck". And that wouldn't be<br />
the best way of starting living together. I<br />
mean, I had a huge problem with taking the<br />
guy who had previously been living in that<br />
room seriously, since he liked all the wrong<br />
<strong>Metal</strong>lica and Megadeth albums. I was prepared<br />
for the worst.<br />
So those of you who know Nidingr very well<br />
know that their album Sorrow Infinite And<br />
Darkness rules soooo hard, and after hearing<br />
that, I started to check out more black metal<br />
bands and stuff from related genres. And I<br />
was so surprised to find out that there was so<br />
much cool shit around. You know, I gave up<br />
on the entire metal thing around 2000. I'd<br />
been losing interest ever since 1995, but in<br />
around 2000 I just gave up finding decent<br />
bands. At that time there was more or less<br />
only crap <strong>com</strong>ing out, or at least: All the<br />
metal stuff I ever got to hear was crap. But<br />
these days I'm checking out new metal bands<br />
with a huge appetite, and I'm constantly surprised<br />
that there's so much kickass stuff<br />
around. After a while I also started a new<br />
band with this new flatmate. He's better<br />
known as Teloch, and our band is called<br />
Umoral.<br />
I've seen that you've been having this discussion<br />
about "avant-garde metal" on your web<br />
site, and my answer to what "avant-garde<br />
metal" would be is that it is an aesthetic ideology.<br />
You know, in most other disciplines<br />
like painting or video art or installations and<br />
whatever, it's usual to say that the avantgarde<br />
is dead, in the sense that the wish to<br />
break the rules and try to push boundaries<br />
and all these things that are <strong>com</strong>monly associated<br />
with avant-garde have be<strong>com</strong>e the de<br />
facto norm. These days, if you want to break<br />
the rules in the art world, you'll have to be<br />
reactionary. Or you can just plainly suck. But<br />
metal is much more conservative than that.<br />
<strong>Metal</strong> must be one of the most conservative<br />
fields of artistic practice in the world, second<br />
only to punk rock (perhaps). So metal is a<br />
field where it still makes sense to be avantgarde,<br />
in the sense that your aesthetic ideology<br />
is to make music that's more than just<br />
average metal.<br />
Very interesting remark there, I've just<br />
started wondering what metal music<br />
being always de facto avant-garde will<br />
try to sound like when it will start to rebreak<br />
the new rules, for example, as you<br />
37<br />
suggested, by seriously wishing hard to<br />
be reactionary. Now isn't this what you<br />
in Fleurey are doing nowadays? Well, I<br />
guess time is running out, right... I'd like<br />
to say thank you very much, Svein-Egil,<br />
for taking your time to answer my questions.<br />
I honestly wish you all the best<br />
with Fleurety: you guys ought to be<strong>com</strong>e<br />
the next rock stars! Now what are you<br />
doing nowadays? Any up<strong>com</strong>ing releases<br />
from your part that you’d like to share<br />
with our avant-garde metal enthusiastic<br />
crew?<br />
I don't think Fleurety will ever be<strong>com</strong>e rock<br />
stars. There will be cold winds of funeral frost<br />
in Hell the day that happens. These days I<br />
work and make music, sometimes getting<br />
shitfaced on days off. Fleurety will be featured<br />
on some strange <strong>com</strong>pilation CD that<br />
<strong>com</strong>es out next year with DIY black metal<br />
recordings. We are working in getting our<br />
debut album Min Tid Skal Komme reissued,<br />
but it seems to take forever. After that we're<br />
releasing that new 7” EP I was talking about<br />
earlier, which features some re-recordings of<br />
material from 1993/94, with a more updated<br />
twist, I guess. We're also hoping to record<br />
material for another 7” this winter. This will<br />
be all new material, so this will be our first<br />
proper recording of new material since 1998,<br />
when we did the recordings for the Department<br />
of Apocalyptic Affairs album.<br />
Also: Thanks to anyone who ever reads this<br />
far and to all the people holding that avantgarde<br />
metal flag high.<br />
Yeah, I guess that was a nice chat with a<br />
pretty cool man, don't you think so? Now let's<br />
all do Fleurety a favour and browse through<br />
their back catalogue all at once and together<br />
for a few days, hoping this is gonna send<br />
inspiring and ass-kicking signals out to the<br />
mysteriously slow-moving, Fleuretean miasmas<br />
of cold and dark Norway.
KOROVAKILL<br />
How To Transform Pressure Into Treasure<br />
By Olivier Côté<br />
Explorers of the mysterious and of the surnatural,<br />
Austrian KorovaKill should be known<br />
to you by now. Ever since 1994, they have<br />
been disturbing the most underground of<br />
undergrounds with their three mind-bending<br />
albums, all of which never made it to <strong>com</strong>mercial<br />
proportions but nevertheless investigated<br />
many new forms of metal expression.<br />
Now that we can evaluate their historical<br />
importance, it's quite easy to realize that<br />
they were one of the few real avant-garde<br />
artists whose passion and creativity always<br />
have pushed further the great art of music.<br />
Call them dreaming spacemen, neo-baroque<br />
thrash orchestras, astro-oceanic divers from<br />
unknown worlds and dimensions! I say whatever,<br />
they're basically here to expand your<br />
sensory systems. And that's what matters the<br />
most, or isn't it? So for the last few months, I<br />
had an ongoing conversation with mastermind<br />
Christof Niederwieser, in order to clarify<br />
what's going on with his daily projects. And<br />
here it <strong>com</strong>es, for your own pleasure...<br />
Cheers Christof, I hope you’re doing<br />
pretty well nowadays. Ever since you<br />
released your last Korovakill album,<br />
namely WaterHells, approximately six<br />
years have passed by, without any subsequent<br />
information to be found regarding<br />
the band. Therefore most of your<br />
fans, including myself, are starting to<br />
wonder if Korovakill is still alive and active<br />
as a musical entity. There aren’t<br />
many bands out there equally pushing<br />
the boundaries of music like you’ve been<br />
doing it since 1991, so I had to ask you:<br />
what has personally kept you away from<br />
<strong>com</strong>posing and releasing new music<br />
throughout all these years?<br />
Thanks a lot, Olivier! Yes KorovaKill are still<br />
active, though nothing new has been released<br />
since WaterHells. There are many<br />
38<br />
reasons for this break, and it would go too<br />
much into detail to name them all.<br />
One important point is my emigration to Berlin<br />
in 2002. This makes regular rehearsals<br />
very difficult. Another one is the fact that<br />
Moritz and Renaud have several other bands<br />
and projects that are far more successful<br />
than KorovaKill. So of course those activities<br />
have priority. Especially Moritz is touring<br />
permanently all around the world. And when<br />
he's back in Austria he also needs his time to<br />
regenerate and to be a private man.<br />
Nevertheless I never stopped building music<br />
in all those years. Many hours of new material<br />
have been <strong>com</strong>posed since WaterHells.<br />
But it still will take a while before all these<br />
fragments will be a <strong>com</strong>plete entity that can<br />
be released as an album. Actually we hope<br />
that it can be finished in 2008.<br />
Discovering WaterHells back in the day<br />
was a delightful experience, mostly because<br />
finding an experimental, boundless<br />
metal band merging itself with real<br />
watery musical themes and ambiances,<br />
astrological imagery and a fishermen<br />
narrative story is such a rare gem. Can<br />
you still listen to this album for what it is,<br />
or has it be<strong>com</strong>e only a musical step that<br />
you have now surpassed as an artist?<br />
And in retrospect, how do you understand<br />
WaterHells particular textures and<br />
colors, when you <strong>com</strong>pare these with<br />
your personal growth within the spheres<br />
of experimental music?<br />
I don't spend too many thoughts on our former<br />
albums. And I wouldn't say that there is<br />
a huge progression or "growing" between A<br />
Kiss in the Charnel Fields, Echowelt, Dead<br />
like an Angel and WaterHells. They all just try<br />
to explore different worlds in different ways.<br />
But I wouldn't put one over the other.<br />
The only point where you can see a progression<br />
is the quality of production. WaterHells<br />
was the first album that we did with an excellent<br />
producer. Markus Stock has conjured a<br />
marvelous sound. So WaterHells definitely is<br />
our most professional release so far. But I am<br />
sure that all the other albums are on the<br />
same level music-wise. They just were recorded<br />
in bad studios with very small budgets.<br />
In some ways WaterHells is our least experimental<br />
album. There aren't tons of different<br />
parts, rhythms, harmonies and languages like<br />
on Charnel Fields. It's much more homogenous<br />
and repetitive. The reason for this is the<br />
very strong concept orientation. The great<br />
Ocean cannot be acoustified with lots of<br />
breaks and <strong>com</strong>plicated metrics. It just has to<br />
flow like the waves and tides. So the single<br />
songs are very homogenous in themselves.<br />
The variety just happens between the songs,<br />
within the course of the album. It starts with
epetitive heavy mid-tempo songs, goes on<br />
to soft acoustic and orchestral tunes and<br />
ends with high speed, furious staccato hymns.<br />
So the flow of this album starts with water<br />
and ends with fire - WaterHells...<br />
I also think that WaterHells<br />
has been your least experimental<br />
album, but only if<br />
you <strong>com</strong>pare it to your own<br />
discography, because once<br />
you start observing the<br />
whole metal scene back in<br />
2001, experimentation<br />
wasn’t at its speak to say<br />
the least. Is experimentation<br />
something you would<br />
like to rediscover and push<br />
further next time?<br />
You never can say what will<br />
<strong>com</strong>e out. It just happens. For<br />
example with Echowelt we tried<br />
very hard to make a very<br />
catchy, <strong>com</strong>mercial album.<br />
When we had finished the<br />
songwriting we thought that it<br />
was much more simple and direct than A Kiss<br />
in the Charnel Fields. And I still think so.<br />
Actually, everyone else thinks that Echowelt<br />
is by far our most experimental and innovative<br />
album. No record <strong>com</strong>pany dared to release<br />
it. The listeners decide what’s experimentation,<br />
not the songwriter. So maybe we<br />
should try to write a very experimental album<br />
now. Then people will probably find it very<br />
<strong>com</strong>mercial and buy it...<br />
In your listening case, and I know<br />
you’ve been concerned with the question<br />
of avant-gardism in metal lately (smile),<br />
what defines the experimental, avantgarde<br />
and furthering nature of metal? If<br />
only listeners decide what experimentation<br />
is, does it mean that the whole<br />
avant-garde culture only is a biosocial<br />
phenomenon that could be reduced to an<br />
always-changing herd fashion?<br />
It depends. On an individual level there are<br />
thousands of musicians trying to create<br />
something innovative. And there are thousands<br />
of listeners perceiving it as experimental<br />
or conventional due to their personal listening<br />
experiences. If you sum up all these<br />
activities you get the construct of a collective<br />
level. Just take all the different bands featured<br />
on www.avantgarde-metal.<strong>com</strong>. A few<br />
of these bands may be perceived as avantgarde<br />
by 90 or more percent of the readers.<br />
And there are many bands where maybe just<br />
20 or 30 percent of the readers think: "Wow,<br />
this band really surprises me with their innovative<br />
sound!” It’s very relative.<br />
39<br />
The more experimental bands you have listened<br />
to, the fewer albums really are able to<br />
surprise you.<br />
Personally I never tried consciously to be<br />
progressive or experimental. Songs <strong>com</strong>e out<br />
of the feelings, not of the brain. You can do<br />
what you want, but you cannot<br />
want what you want.<br />
I always had a feeling that<br />
within Korova’s earlier releases,<br />
from A Kiss in the<br />
Charnel Field’s more uncertain,<br />
nervous approach to<br />
Echowelt’s total blasting<br />
force, you certainly had a flirt<br />
or two with <strong>com</strong>plete mental<br />
confusion and pure musical<br />
strangeness, while some sort<br />
of a rebellious bizarre malaise<br />
was carried on the whole<br />
time with your uniquely troubled,<br />
if not broken vocals. As<br />
a performer and <strong>com</strong>poser,<br />
did it have any link with your<br />
own personality back then,<br />
whereas with WaterHells, a<br />
certain peace of mind had been found,<br />
thus the more relaxed, laid-back atmospheres?<br />
Like I already said in earlier statements: the<br />
songwriting is just an act of self-defense. So<br />
of course it’s connected to our personality in<br />
some way. Although I don’t think that there<br />
is such a thing as personality – we have<br />
countless and none. It’s not personality. I<br />
would call it "decision” – decision to act in a<br />
special way, to wear a certain mask, to<br />
choose a certain shape, to let a certain spirit<br />
flow through you for a period of time. That’s<br />
all.<br />
After Charnel Fields and Echowelt more extreme,<br />
more bizarre, more dissonant and<br />
eccentric would have been very boring. It<br />
wouldn’t have added something new to our<br />
sound anymore. So already with Dead like an<br />
Angel we headed towards the opposite direction.<br />
There are some mysterious ballads and<br />
even pop-like songs and parts. Maybe it’s not<br />
so obvious on that album, because the production<br />
is pretty bad and hence doesn’t<br />
sound <strong>com</strong>mercial. And also WaterHells partly<br />
went into this calm, relaxed direction. Here<br />
it’s more obvious due to the excellent sound.<br />
So most of all the reason for this changed<br />
performance was the wish to explore further<br />
terrains of expression yet undiscovered by<br />
our former songs.<br />
Self-defense, alright – but what is the<br />
self defending itself against here? More<br />
specifically: how is musical creation taking<br />
shape in your case?
When the flood of inner pictures has reached<br />
a certain amount of pressure there are two<br />
ways: The destructive one where you get<br />
totally overwhelmed by it or the creative one<br />
where you canalize it into songs or writings.<br />
Only the latter way is able to transform the<br />
pressure into treasure.<br />
Already in Dead like an Angel’s booklet,<br />
there was a special mention about Katalypse<br />
2025, an album you were supposedly<br />
working on back in 1998. What was<br />
that all about? There seemed to be quite<br />
a <strong>com</strong>plex, sci-fi and philosophical scenario<br />
written down for this new record,<br />
but what about its musical content? Why<br />
did you finally abandon it in order to<br />
<strong>com</strong>plete WaterHells?<br />
Katalypse 2025 was a futuristic scenario for<br />
a book and for an album. It was about the<br />
massive expansion of human senses by the<br />
means of technical progression - biomechanical<br />
sense-transplants, massive omnipresence<br />
of information, mind drugs, etc. It starts with<br />
two world epidemics of schizophrenia and<br />
telepathy. In the end all individuals merge<br />
into a single collective being. The whole globe<br />
transforms into a single eye with view all<br />
around in all directions, receiving all waves,<br />
atoms, movements, stimuli at all scales and<br />
zooms at the same time - vision, sound,<br />
smell, taste and sentiment, even thoughts<br />
and feelings all melt together as one – the<br />
All...<br />
But when you look at history there’s nothing<br />
more old-fashioned and worn-out than former<br />
future scenarios. Trying to write about the<br />
future always catches you in the present zeitgeist,<br />
in fashions and trends. It catches you<br />
in time. I didn’t want to step into this trap<br />
and preferred to choose a more timeless con-<br />
40<br />
cept. That’s the reason why I decided to<br />
<strong>com</strong>plete WaterHells. People 5000 years ago<br />
can understand its deeper meaning and people<br />
in 5000 years will still understand it. Not<br />
so with the meaning of Katalypse 2025...<br />
It’s possible to frequently read from<br />
your writing hand, as much in lyrics as in<br />
interviews, words such as<br />
the Great All, the One, the<br />
Hidden Force, the Ocean,<br />
the Eye, the Sea, the Total<br />
Sum, the World of worlds,<br />
the Entity, etc. Despite the<br />
multiple word identities<br />
you’re using here and there,<br />
I get the feeling that all of<br />
these could be in fact<br />
boiled down to one pulsing<br />
phenomenon.<br />
Tao, Brahman, Apeiron, Hyle,<br />
Quintessence, Bosenazelo,<br />
Hunabku, Manitu, Orenda,<br />
Wakonda, Wakan, Mana, Ain<br />
Soph, Central Monad, Substance<br />
or also Primal Force<br />
and Great United Energy in<br />
modern physics... There are<br />
countless words for it. It took<br />
me quite some years before I realized that all<br />
these are just words, nothing more...<br />
Nothing more, nothing less as we say… I<br />
would even go as far as to say that most<br />
words are just words – right! But being<br />
the lyricist and should I say, your own<br />
band’s great writer, is there something<br />
one can do to push up the words to<br />
something more involving so to speak?<br />
So that they are indeed "just words”,<br />
yeah, but they can also achieve maintaining<br />
kind of an evocative or emotional<br />
power when you do sing yourself<br />
through them. To which degree of importance<br />
are your lyrics ac<strong>com</strong>plished<br />
within Korovakill?<br />
Lyrics always have been very important for<br />
us in the past. Maybe too important, because<br />
the lyrical flow always has been much harder<br />
and slower than the musical flow. So 95 percent<br />
of my <strong>com</strong>positions always remain unfinished,<br />
because there aren’t enough words to<br />
finish songs out of them. It’s very easy for<br />
me to create music. It’s also quite effortless<br />
for me to develop lyrical ideas and concepts.<br />
But it’s heavy like a stone to catch them into<br />
the shapes of words. On one hand the sound<br />
and rhythm of the words must fit the music<br />
and the atmosphere perfectly. On the other<br />
hand the meaning of the words should create<br />
a perfect flow of visions and pictures in the<br />
head of the listener. It’s very difficult to
achieve this perfect unity of sound, rhythm<br />
and meaning.<br />
I think that you have nowadays started<br />
mentioning an up<strong>com</strong>ing album for 2008.<br />
It’s probably a bit early to work out a<br />
whole prognosis regarding your own<br />
future, but if you do consider the already<br />
<strong>com</strong>posed material at hand, do you have<br />
an idea about what the new album will<br />
be<strong>com</strong>e like? Will it be another concept<br />
album? What’s on your mind, Christof,<br />
this time around? Are you Korovakill’s<br />
sole and only <strong>com</strong>poser when it <strong>com</strong>es to<br />
the arrangements and the soundshaping?<br />
More than half of the new material is already<br />
<strong>com</strong>pleted. The overall vision is fixed. In my<br />
head the album is finished. But it’s still a lot<br />
of work to put everything together and to do<br />
the whole recordings. Somehow it will be a<br />
mixture of our first four albums and something<br />
<strong>com</strong>pletely different at the same time.<br />
Let’s get surprised...<br />
On our former albums I did most of the songwriting<br />
alone. When a song was finished we<br />
went to the rehearsal room and the others<br />
arranged the lines for their instruments. With<br />
our drummer Moritz Neuner it always has<br />
been much more. His rhythmic creativity is<br />
enormous. I conceived the songs. But his<br />
drum lines gave birth to them and made<br />
them live. On our last album WaterHells also<br />
the work of Renaud Tschirner had a huge<br />
impact. He did many additional arrangements<br />
and orchestrations. And he took care of all<br />
the electronic sounds. At the moment both<br />
are extremely busy with their other bands<br />
(Elend, Leave’s Eyes, etc.). So I will probably<br />
do it <strong>com</strong>pletely alone this time.<br />
Do you have any lyrics already written,<br />
or some sort of overall conceptual indications?<br />
Any particular themes you’d like<br />
to work with this time?<br />
41<br />
Yes the whole concept is finished. But of<br />
course it will remain my secret until the release...<br />
Afterwards it will be your secret.<br />
Well I can only wish that the tasks<br />
ahead will not leave you <strong>com</strong>pletely<br />
dead! By the way, how did you meet<br />
Renaud Tschirner? Both of you seem<br />
to know each other pretty well. I understand<br />
he already was there with<br />
you on Korova’s first album, playing<br />
violins and pianos if I remember well.<br />
Should we think that he always sort<br />
of was a second-ear friend when it<br />
came to your personal <strong>com</strong>positions?<br />
We know each other from The Village. He<br />
was number 7. I was number 29. We<br />
were neighbors for many years. In 1992<br />
we started to enjoy music together. When he<br />
formed his first metal band I helped on guitar<br />
sometimes. And he also helped on violin and<br />
keyboards at several Korova concerts and<br />
recordings.<br />
Making music with Renaud always has been a<br />
big pleasure and very inspiring. Sometimes<br />
we listen to the newest <strong>com</strong>positions of each<br />
others. It helps a lot to decide between several<br />
possibilities, though a second ear doesn’t<br />
change much in our creations.<br />
Boring question but, are you going to<br />
stay with Red Stream? I thought you had<br />
a better distribution, at least in America,<br />
with this label.<br />
I haven’t spent thoughts on that yet. But Red<br />
Stream is definitely a great label, very reliable,<br />
dedicated and honest. Doing WaterHells<br />
with them has been a big pleasure.<br />
A while ago, there were some rumors<br />
around that Korovakill would re-record<br />
the whole Echowelt sessions with a<br />
much improved sound-picture. Has that<br />
been put on ice indefinitely? If it’s never<br />
going to be done, why aren’t you releasing<br />
the songs to your hungry fans via<br />
internet?<br />
Yes, I am really sorry that you have to wait<br />
so long for Echowelt. Already more than 10<br />
years have passed now since the demo got<br />
rejected by more than 50 labels. But we definitely<br />
will do it! The first test recordings already<br />
were realized this summer. At the moment<br />
I am very busy reconstructing the<br />
whole original midi tracks with click and basic<br />
keyboards. We used a pretty stupid midi format<br />
back in the 1990ies. And it’s pretty difficult<br />
to integrate that in current programs.<br />
But I am sure we’ll manage that.
We won’t release the original Echowelt demo<br />
recordings, because we already were totally<br />
dissatisfied with them during the recordings<br />
in the summer of 1997. It was a 100 $ production<br />
in a small amateur studio with a totally<br />
drunken producer who didn’t know his<br />
gear at all.<br />
Who was the Echowelt Man and what<br />
were his purposes in life?<br />
Was there an Echowelt Man? I really don’t<br />
remember... Aren’t we all Echoworld men,<br />
living in our pictures and imaginations of the<br />
world without knowing at all what’s really<br />
going on out there? Who knows will understand...<br />
Now to something different.<br />
I know you have been working<br />
very hard with your scientific<br />
career in the past few<br />
years, even publishing a<br />
book out of your results,<br />
Über die magischen Praktiken<br />
des Managements. I<br />
just would like you to say if<br />
you can see any functional<br />
similarities between your<br />
work as a Ph.D. and your<br />
work as a musician and<br />
<strong>com</strong>poser. Do you sometimes<br />
get musical ideas out<br />
of your studies and vice<br />
versa, are you acknowledging<br />
any research ideas out of<br />
your Korovakill activities?<br />
In both areas I try to experiment<br />
and create new ways of<br />
thinking. In both areas just a<br />
small circle of people enjoys to<br />
dive into it. These are the only<br />
similarities. When I am a scientist<br />
the musician is dead. And<br />
when I am a musician the scientist<br />
is dead. Scientific work<br />
most of all means reading a lot<br />
of books and papers. It means<br />
filling your brain with countless<br />
thoughts of others. In contrast<br />
creating songs means totally<br />
42<br />
rejecting any others thoughts. It means freeing<br />
your mind <strong>com</strong>pletely from the outer<br />
world. So during the times when I wrote WaterHells<br />
University had to rest. And when I<br />
wrote my last scientific work Prognosis in<br />
Magic and Modernity (800 pages), I wasn't<br />
able to create full albums for several years.<br />
There’s no synergy at all.<br />
For the German readers, when will Prognosis<br />
in Magic and Modernity be available<br />
in a book format? In a few words,<br />
can you present what it is all about?<br />
It’s the history of prognosis from Babylon to<br />
Wall Street, from Marxist-Leninist society<br />
prognosis to market research, from culture<br />
cycles to genetics, from science fiction and<br />
utopias to futurology, from astrology to technical<br />
chart analysis, from African necromancy<br />
to macroeconomics. The first 600 pages contain<br />
the different methods of prognosis –<br />
visionary methods, methods based on reading<br />
signs and methods based on patterns in<br />
the timeline. The last 200 pages contain the<br />
different philosophic and psychological aspects<br />
of forecasting, the second oldest business<br />
in the world...<br />
It hopefully will be released in four books<br />
over the next couple of years.<br />
Were some of your university<br />
colleagues aware of your music?<br />
I mean, it coulhave been<br />
funny to hear during a seminary<br />
classroom someone<br />
whispering to his right-placed<br />
friend: "Before <strong>com</strong>ing to our<br />
meeting, I did some internet<br />
research on this Dr. Christof<br />
Niederwieser, and I got to<br />
listen to some of his music.<br />
Well, I don’t think we really<br />
know who this man is!”<br />
I never made much fuss about<br />
my musical activities at University.<br />
Anyway it’s already some<br />
years ago that I’ve attended<br />
seminars. Something like internet<br />
research wasn't <strong>com</strong>mon in<br />
these days.<br />
Artistically, I believe you<br />
were much more active before,<br />
for example in numerous<br />
musical side-projects,<br />
writing lyrics here and singing<br />
there. Then only recently<br />
you’ve surprisingly worked<br />
with (in)famous bizarre director<br />
Bill Zebub on his 2006<br />
dolls movie, Dolla Morte,<br />
lending your voice to one of<br />
the characters. Can you
please present what was the role you<br />
had to fulfill in there? And is this something<br />
you’d like experiment with in the<br />
future?<br />
After Charnel Fields I was involved in a couple<br />
of other bands and projects. But one day<br />
I realized how much energy this takes away<br />
from Korova. So I stopped all foreign obligations<br />
by the end of 1999. Actually there have<br />
just been two engagements that I really enjoyed<br />
– the vocal work for ANGIZIA and the<br />
electro songs that I did together with Renaud.<br />
The voices for the Bill Zebub movie were<br />
much fun for an afternoon, no big deal. I had<br />
to talk English with hard German accent.<br />
Probably there will be more narrator work in<br />
the future. It’s a good possibility to push<br />
vocal expression further. Some radio plays in<br />
German language are loosely planned. And if<br />
a young movie maker needs strange voices<br />
for his next film, feel free to contact me.<br />
Speaking of cinema and of theatrical<br />
voices, when listening to your music and<br />
extravagant performances, I imagine<br />
you must have been (and still would be)<br />
quite a special live act. How did that go<br />
in the past, and why in the end did you<br />
stop playing live?<br />
Yes, our concerts always were pure madness.<br />
I don’t think that my old body would still be<br />
able to do it. It was so exhausting. We<br />
stopped to play live in 2000. It just became<br />
too much organizational work. I love organizing.<br />
But in the case of our live concerts I just<br />
had the feeling that I could use my energies<br />
more effectively. With KorovaKill I want to<br />
create music, not spend 95 % of the time<br />
with management activities.<br />
Our live line-up for a gig consisted of 6 to 10<br />
people – musicians, guest musicians, light<br />
and sound engineers... and I had to work out<br />
43<br />
the whole performance with each single of<br />
them and organize everything.<br />
So at the point where my scientific work intensified<br />
a lot we decided to quit the live lineup<br />
and regular rehearsals and just continue<br />
with a very small studio line-up: Moritz on<br />
drums, Renaud on keyboards and sounds and<br />
myself for the rest. This helps a lot to concentrate<br />
very effectively on our musical creations.<br />
Are you at least kind of proud to have<br />
participated in the awakening and pioneering<br />
phase of experimentation within<br />
the metal world? I personally think that<br />
what you’re doing now with avantgardemetal.<strong>com</strong><br />
is a direct continuation of<br />
that and a pretty cool gesture in itself.<br />
At least from what I know, I guess it’s<br />
fair to say that you’re quite a modest<br />
and reserved man, but I say there<br />
should be more creative individuals like<br />
you in every artistic and scientific field. I<br />
honestly hope that the inner<br />
floods of pictures are going<br />
to keep you boiling deep inside,<br />
Christof.<br />
Yes, I really enjoy seeing what<br />
came out of our activities started<br />
in the early 1990ies. When we<br />
released Charnel Fields in 1995<br />
most reviews have been very<br />
negative. The metal scene was<br />
quite narrow-minded in these<br />
days and hated experimentation.<br />
But we needed the mainstream<br />
magazines and labels, because<br />
otherwise nobody would have<br />
been able to experience our<br />
work. Probably there already<br />
were many people interested in<br />
avant-garde metal. But it was<br />
extremely difficult to reach them.<br />
The internet has helped a lot to democratize<br />
the music scene, to connect people who love<br />
the same kinds of music. So some years ago<br />
I was very positively surprised that avantgarde<br />
metal is more and more be<strong>com</strong>ing a<br />
widespread term. More and more weirdos are<br />
enjoying the experimental sides of metal.<br />
And they can get cool albums very easily<br />
without fighting through the big walls that<br />
were built by labels and mass media in former<br />
days. I hope avant-garde-metal.<strong>com</strong> can<br />
help to cultivate the styleless styles a little,<br />
the metal beyond borders and to support all<br />
freaks and weirdos, scientists and philosophers,<br />
libertines and mavericks of metal music.
DOL AMMAD<br />
The Kings Of Space <strong>Metal</strong> Opera<br />
By Chrystof<br />
Did you ever wonder how it would sound if<br />
epic progressive metal unified with exquisite<br />
synthesizers and electro sounds in the vein of<br />
1970ies pioneers like Jean Michel Jarre or<br />
Vangelis? And instead of a lead singer there<br />
was a whole classical choir performing the<br />
lyrics? Then DOL AMMAD definitely will be<strong>com</strong>e<br />
one of your greatest favourites ever.<br />
When I first listened to them one year ago I<br />
was totally blown to another dimension<br />
somewhere in the mighty depths of space.<br />
DOL AMMAD create unique, innovative music,<br />
epic landscapes of crystallizing sound. At the<br />
same time they manage the legerdemain of<br />
writing very catchy songs with big hit potential.<br />
The 21st century of metal has begun<br />
now. And DOL AMMAD show how the future<br />
may look like. So enter the intergalactic<br />
spaceship and beam to the planet of Thanasis<br />
Lightbridge, creative head and visionary of<br />
these mighty towers reaching up to the<br />
stars…<br />
Thanasis, you‘ve just returned from military<br />
service two months ago. Despite<br />
being at the army you found your own<br />
label Electronicartmetal Records and<br />
released your second masterpiece<br />
"Ocean Dynamics". How did you manage<br />
these musical activities during this<br />
whole year as a soldier? Was it difficult<br />
for you to promote "Ocean Dynamics"?<br />
Has military been an important experience<br />
for you personally or just a waste<br />
of time? How short is your hair now?<br />
44<br />
The last year has been hard for me, both with<br />
the problems with our previous record label<br />
going bankrupt and with my imminent army<br />
duties.<br />
I am afraid the military service is still obligatory<br />
here in Greece and although now it lasts<br />
12 months (it used to be 3 years in my father’s<br />
days), it is still a distracting factor in a<br />
man’s career and life, an obstacle that if you<br />
aren’t willing to take your chances by wearing<br />
a blonde wig and act gay, you have to go<br />
through the hard way ;-P<br />
As an experience it makes you test yourself<br />
under strange situations, living without your<br />
<strong>com</strong>forts, away from your music, sleeping in<br />
a room with 60 unknown smelly guys, etc. It<br />
basically forces you to respect and appreciate<br />
all the tiny things in your everyday life that<br />
you take for granted. Thankfully throughout<br />
my service I met a lot of new friends and this<br />
for me is the only thing that made this time<br />
worthwhile. I hope Greece will start investing<br />
more money on education and social welfare<br />
than the military.<br />
I miss my hair, I was long-haired for about<br />
10 years and cutting it short after all this<br />
time was a strange experience! I scare myself<br />
every time I look in the mirror ;-P Thankfully<br />
my hair grows back quickly,<br />
it is all over my eyes now already!<br />
Through all this craziness<br />
of the last 12 months I<br />
had prepared our second album<br />
with Dol Ammad and was very<br />
anxious how and what to do to<br />
promote it. I suppose forming a<br />
personal record label was always<br />
in the back of my mind<br />
since this music is so unique<br />
and "different”, it requires total<br />
artistic freedom and an innovative<br />
vision that very few labels<br />
display today. So once again I<br />
chose the hard way, formed<br />
"Electronicartmetal Records”<br />
and never looked back! It may<br />
be TONS of more work to do but<br />
it is really worth it. I have direct<br />
contact with the fans, the distros<br />
and the media and it is a very satisfying<br />
experience. Due to the limited free time I had<br />
in the army I couldn’t explore my new label<br />
to its full potential, but now I am back, I am<br />
psyched and working as hard as possible to<br />
expand its capabilities.<br />
"Ocean Dynamics" is one of the most<br />
visionary albums I’ve ever been able to<br />
enjoy. On one hand it’s very innovative<br />
and independent. On the other hand it’s<br />
extremely catchy and has got a big hit<br />
potential. Can you imagine that Electronic<br />
Art <strong>Metal</strong> could be<strong>com</strong>e music for
the masses one day in the future? How<br />
have the reactions of the media and fans<br />
been so far?<br />
Thank you for your kind remarks, I am honoured<br />
that you feel this way about my music!<br />
It's true that although I try to create something<br />
really different and experimental, at the<br />
same time I don't want to end up with music<br />
that is inaudible and would only serve as an<br />
experimental salad in a museum :-P I don't<br />
know however if Electronica Art <strong>Metal</strong> will<br />
ever be music for "the masses" but that<br />
doesn't really concern me as I rarely seem to<br />
agree or act in conjunction with what "the<br />
masses” think and do. I make music basically<br />
for my own pleasure and for other adventurous<br />
co-travellers that I discover along the<br />
way! Only with these devoted friends is this<br />
journey of music discovery worthwhile and<br />
doesn’t end up being just some shallow music<br />
with lifestyle-strings attached.<br />
Can you tell us more about the lyrical<br />
concept of "Ocean Dynamics”? In her<br />
review Katja speculated that it could be<br />
a Journey from outer space into our solar<br />
system and finally descending into<br />
the oceans of planet earth. In other articles<br />
I’ve read that it’s a science-fiction<br />
concept about a water planet. What’s<br />
really the story behind? Is it somehow<br />
connected to the concept of your debut<br />
"Star Tales”?<br />
Yes, just as in "Star Tales”, the lyrics of<br />
"Ocean Dynamics” are science fiction stories<br />
but this time theme-based around the liquid<br />
element, the power of the seas. I live in a<br />
sea-dominated country and city so the liquid<br />
element is vital for my life. I really can’t<br />
imagine myself living away from the sea. The<br />
"Thalassa Dominion” story that mainly dominates<br />
the album is about an aquatic race<br />
living in a water planet. They are the spores<br />
45<br />
of an ancient space tribe whose actions resulted<br />
in the devastation and corruption of<br />
the liquid element through the eras. This time<br />
I worked together with a good friend who<br />
writes these kinds of short-stories and we<br />
had a great time <strong>com</strong>ing up with aquatic<br />
space themes! I like to have a different<br />
"theme” for each album although I must confess<br />
that I am not such a fan of lyrics in general.<br />
I rarely read the lyrics in bands’ booklets;<br />
I always focus on the music no matter if<br />
the band speaks about cosmic epic battles or<br />
how to make a cheesecake ;-P However, I<br />
am a sucker for all things sci-fi related so I<br />
think that my music will always have a space<br />
flavour.<br />
DOL AMMAD is a huge collective consisting<br />
of a 14 member classical choir, 2<br />
session members on vocals and drums, 2<br />
band members on guitars and bass and<br />
finally Thanasis Lightbridge, yourself, as<br />
the mastermind. To what extent would<br />
you call DOL AMMAD a band? How much<br />
are the others involved in the creative<br />
process? Are you doing all the songwriting<br />
and arrangements alone or do the<br />
others take part in that?<br />
Dol Ammad is not a band in the typical form.<br />
I don’t distinguish members as "session” or<br />
"band” members. It is true that I <strong>com</strong>pose all<br />
the music and control everything in the creative<br />
process but this doesn’t diminish the role<br />
of any of the participants. I like to think of<br />
Dol Ammad’s albums as movies where I am<br />
the director and the rest of the guys and girls<br />
are actors and technical crew! I have a personal<br />
dream and vision with my music, but<br />
you need people to make the dream <strong>com</strong>e<br />
true. I am grateful that I work with such talented<br />
personalities.<br />
Is it difficult to work with so many musicians?<br />
You have to do lots of coordination<br />
and motivation work. Is this something<br />
that goes easy for you?<br />
It can be difficult to coordinate all those people<br />
and arrange all the parts but I like the<br />
challenge. Through this process I have<br />
learned a lot and already in "Ocean Dynamics”<br />
I used experience I had gained in "Star<br />
Tales” to make the job better and easier.<br />
However I do plan to user a more <strong>com</strong>pact<br />
group of people for the third Dol Ammad album.<br />
The choir consists of 7 women and 7<br />
men. Do they sing exclusively for DOL<br />
AMMAD? Or are they a professional choir<br />
that also does other performances?<br />
Most of them are professional choristers and<br />
soloists in various choirs and solo acts in
Greece. Some are even teachers of solo and<br />
choral singing and most have participated in<br />
the biggest opera and symphonic events in<br />
Greece. I am privileged to be surrounded by<br />
such great musicians.<br />
Great musicians and also very good looking,<br />
at least when it <strong>com</strong>es to the women.<br />
Did the optical aspect play a certain role<br />
in your choices? Or did you spice up the<br />
band picture with some photo models ;-<br />
P? Or is it just that Greek women look<br />
very beautiful in general for the eyes of<br />
North Europeans?<br />
Hehe, of course Greece has very beautiful<br />
women and the band picture actually depicts<br />
the singers and not some models! LOL! But I<br />
understand your point of view since when I<br />
visit Northern Europe I think that all the<br />
women are amazingly beautiful there! You<br />
see we are more used to brunette – brown<br />
eyed beauties and feel that blue eyes –<br />
blonde hair are more "exotic” , so this must<br />
have the vice-versa effect on you ;-P But to<br />
get back to the music, beauty has and should<br />
have nothing to do with singing skills and<br />
music nature of a person and a band. I am<br />
totally against the countless bands seeking<br />
pretty faces to front their band. I mean why<br />
should I buy a musically shallow CD just because<br />
they have a great looking girl on the<br />
covers, videos etc? This is targeted to brainless<br />
listeners and shares the same principles<br />
as all those advertisements that display<br />
babes and sexual innuendos in everything<br />
from yoghurt to car tyres! I want nothing to<br />
do with that and I wish the same for our listeners<br />
too.<br />
You came into contact with drummer<br />
Alex Holzwarth (Rhapsody, Sieges Even)<br />
through a <strong>com</strong>mon friend. What made<br />
you choose him, especially since you are<br />
a drummer yourself? Was it difficult to<br />
convince him for DOL AMMAD? Will he<br />
also play on your future releases?<br />
46<br />
Especially since I am<br />
also a drummer and<br />
drums are my second<br />
biggest passion after<br />
synthesizers, I wanted<br />
the best possible drums<br />
for my music. Alex<br />
Holzwarth was a hero<br />
to me for many years<br />
and didn’t think twice<br />
when I had the chance<br />
to get in contact with<br />
him. It wasn’t difficult<br />
to convince him; he<br />
just requested to check<br />
the music first. I was<br />
honoured by his participation and I hope to<br />
work again with him in the future as he is a<br />
great person and phenomenal drummer!<br />
Some people see similarities between<br />
DOL AMMAD and Rhapsody, because the<br />
drumming of Alex is so characteristic.<br />
What do you think about that?<br />
It is true that in the power metal songs of Dol<br />
Ammad there are similarities in the playing<br />
style of the drums but this can be said for<br />
any power metal band. We are also often told<br />
that Dol Ammad has similarities with Therion<br />
due to the use of a choir. I am a fan and respect<br />
both of these bands but I think that Dol<br />
Ammad is doing something totally different.<br />
What will always distinguish us are the use of<br />
electronics and the adventurous <strong>com</strong>positions,<br />
things that I don’t ever plan to <strong>com</strong>promise.<br />
For "Star Tales” the drums of Alex<br />
Holzwarth have been produced in Germany’s<br />
Gate Studio. In the photo album<br />
on your webpage you are drinking a<br />
Kakao in Porschestrasse 1 in Wolfsburg<br />
and also have some fun with the bears of<br />
Berlin. How did you like Germany?<br />
Haha! Oh yes, I had a great time in Germany!<br />
I stayed there for 2 weeks and it was
awesome! I visited Wolfsburg, Gifhorn, Berlin,<br />
Hamburg and Hanover. I have lots of friends<br />
there, I cooperate with German musicians<br />
and German <strong>com</strong>panies, and I feel very close<br />
to this country! If only I had the time to learn<br />
the language…! As for the Kakao, people who<br />
know me are aware that I drink more milk<br />
than water ;-P<br />
So the next DOL AMMAD album probably<br />
will be<strong>com</strong>e a concept album about a<br />
milk planet ;-)?<br />
LOL! Great idea! In fact I always look for<br />
something to honour the great existence of<br />
milk. Maybe I should write a song like "Calcium”<br />
or "Dominion of the Holy Cows” (In 14<br />
parts) ;-P<br />
Can you tell us how you manage the<br />
whole recording process? For "Star<br />
Tales” you’ve recorded some parts in<br />
Germany. For "Ocean Dynamics” did you<br />
do everything in your own studio – recording,<br />
mixing and mastering? Has the<br />
choir been recorded as a whole with<br />
some stereo microphones or each singer<br />
separately?<br />
Yes, in "Ocean Dynamics” all the production<br />
took place in my studio in Thessaloniki,<br />
Greece. I used various techniques for the<br />
choir and for this album I think it is easy to<br />
notice that the recording quality is better<br />
than the debut. I like to record both the<br />
whole and each voice separately (3 to 4 people<br />
at a time). For the third album I plan to<br />
use some new techniques I have <strong>com</strong>e up<br />
with.<br />
The sound of "Ocean Dynamics” is marvellous.<br />
Do you have lots of high-end<br />
technique in your studio? Or are you one<br />
of those clever producers who manage<br />
47<br />
to create excellent sound with small and<br />
cost-effective technical means? How<br />
does your studio look like?<br />
Thanx! I have some high-end equipment but<br />
they are nothing <strong>com</strong>pared to huge <strong>com</strong>mercial<br />
studios. In my studio I work together<br />
with my good friend Argy Stream with whom<br />
we share a <strong>com</strong>mon passion for detail and<br />
fidelity. We take care of every little detail and<br />
use various techniques that in the end give<br />
you a great result without having to sell your<br />
house just to buy that special esoteric preamp!<br />
Having said that, the studio is always<br />
expanding and upgrading and we are now<br />
open to creative bands or musicians who’d<br />
like to use our experience and equipment for<br />
their work. I get this request a lot so I will<br />
soon also post photos of the studio in our<br />
website.<br />
You are influenced by the great synthesizer<br />
pioneers of the 1970ies like Jean<br />
Michel Jarre or Vangelis. Do you use<br />
some original analog gear from those<br />
times like Arp or Moog? Or do you mostly<br />
work with software plugins? What do<br />
you think about all the new software<br />
emulations of analog gear?<br />
I have analog and virtual-analog synthesizers<br />
which I love! I am not a big fan of plugins<br />
and soft-synths although I do use them a lot<br />
also. I think in the recent years the quality of<br />
soft synths has been greatly improved but I<br />
believe more in the power of software libraries<br />
than just software for analog emulations.<br />
If you’ve grown up with MIDI and hands on<br />
control of a synthesizer I don’t think you’ll<br />
ever be fully satisfied by a plugin and a<br />
mouse or even with a controller having to<br />
map everything and create scenes etc. Although<br />
I do use all the latest technologies<br />
and stay up to date with the music tech progress,<br />
I witness that I tend to go back to<br />
simpler and older techniques the last years. I<br />
think that it is easy to lose control with technology<br />
and to miss the whole point of music<br />
making.<br />
Yes, that’s absolutely true. Many musicians<br />
are loosing themselves in gearslutting<br />
and drown in the new possibilities<br />
that modern technology offers them. But<br />
even if you are using your gear wisely it<br />
can rob you much time. You told me that<br />
you had a <strong>com</strong>puter crash in your studio<br />
that blocked your work for weeks. Do<br />
you sometimes wish to make music<br />
purely without having to dig between<br />
countless cables, plugs, knobs and electronic<br />
labyrinths? Maybe like in the past<br />
when <strong>com</strong>posers had a piano, some<br />
sheets of paper and then gave the scores<br />
to an orchestra? Or like in the future
when the head-to-midi-converter (a vision<br />
of TT/Abigor) makes the music<br />
stream directly from your head out of<br />
the loudspeakers?<br />
LOL! Head-to-midi?! I would prefer Head-to-<br />
CD-Factory but we’ll have to start from<br />
somewhere ;-P Seriously though we as mankind<br />
are really in our very early baby-steps in<br />
technology and have a lot way to go. Yes, I<br />
had an unfortunate and simultaneous crash in<br />
2 of the 3 <strong>com</strong>puters in the studio and I had<br />
some difficult 3 weeks trying to save the<br />
work and bring back order into chaos. Thankfully<br />
nothing was lost except for the time<br />
delay and some thousands nerve-cells in my<br />
brain. It is true that I push these machines to<br />
their extremes but you should never count<br />
and rely 100% on them. I think back-up and<br />
restoration plans should be top priorities in<br />
<strong>com</strong>puter environments. I am not sure if the<br />
<strong>com</strong>posers of the past were always fully satisfied<br />
by the way their "tools” performed their<br />
music, a "crash” in an orchestra would be<br />
maybe a drunken violinist ;-P<br />
I do sometimes wish I could make music<br />
more easily and every time I play on a classical<br />
piano I am amazed by its purity and natural<br />
form. However I am afraid I am trapped<br />
forever in my electronic labyrinths and there<br />
is no turning back now…<br />
You also like Mike Oldfield. I think you<br />
both share this peaceful, positive mood<br />
in your songs and also the catchy melodies.<br />
Did you ever think about experimenting<br />
with folk or classical instruments<br />
like him? Maybe not for DOL AM-<br />
MAD, but for other projects?<br />
Oh yes, in Dol Theeta! There is a lot of experimentation<br />
with ethnic instruments,<br />
mainly bagpipes, violins, flutes. I love the<br />
sound of bagpipes it is the most captivating<br />
folk instrument in the world. I also plan to<br />
make a sample library of a great Greek folk<br />
instrument when I have the time. It is an<br />
instrument that few people know in the world<br />
and of course there are no libraries for it. I<br />
have found a great player of this instrument<br />
and when I have time we will meet in the<br />
studio to construct a virtual instrument for it!<br />
Can you tell us more about DOL THEETA?<br />
You will also play drums for it. And your<br />
homepage says that it will concentrate<br />
on your meditative and atmospheric<br />
48<br />
sides. When can we expect the debut<br />
album? And what can we expect?<br />
Yes I also play the drums in Dol Theeta and it<br />
is turning out a HUGE album! I thought it<br />
would be an easier production <strong>com</strong>pared to<br />
Dol Ammad and everyone was like "ok, now<br />
you are 3 people only, this production will be<br />
shorter” but the songs are very lengthy, deep<br />
in emotions and feelings and have tricky orchestrations.<br />
I am not even sure what to<br />
expect of the debut album… Just like with<br />
"Star Tales” we will start from somewhere to<br />
try to find ourselves through it. The plan for<br />
Dol Theeta was conceived when I started<br />
infusing lots of meditative and softer/ambient<br />
parts in Dol Ammad and didn’t feel satisfied<br />
with it… I mean I want Dol Ammad to be in<br />
one word "EPIC”! So I decided that electronica-art-metal<br />
must be portrayed by more<br />
than one band and thus Dol Theeta was born.<br />
I am really happy with the result and also<br />
very anxious to see what the final out<strong>com</strong>e<br />
will be. The music is so narcotic, you dive<br />
into the songs and sometimes you dive too<br />
deep it gets scary…It is an electrifying inner<br />
journey that defies limits and structures.<br />
You are going to do a video clip for it.<br />
Can you reveal anything about it?<br />
Yes I think I can now reveal the first steps of<br />
the Dol Theeta world. I have decided to release<br />
a single before the full album. The single<br />
will be for a song called "Goddess” and it<br />
will also include our first ever video clip! We<br />
are currently working on the Graphics for the<br />
video with the help of my greatest friend who<br />
is an expert in Computer Programming. I am<br />
really excited to see the final result!<br />
And did you ever think about creating a<br />
"negative twin” of DOL AMMAD with a<br />
dark and dissonant basic mood? I mean<br />
you already had some dramatic, furious<br />
and dissonant parts on "Ocean Dynamics”.<br />
But in general the mood is very<br />
positive and makes you feel good and<br />
optimistic even in dark hours.<br />
Of course! It is the third "Dol” in the world of<br />
Electronica – art- metal, a third project that<br />
will appear in the near future! There was an<br />
innuendo about it in my message on our<br />
website when I announce Dol Theeta but few<br />
people noticed it ;-P Anyway, yes I have a<br />
VERY darker side which I can’t wait to ex-
press and share with our friends. It is when<br />
this third "Dol” project <strong>com</strong>es out that our<br />
listeners will finally have the total picture of<br />
my music and understand my vision. All I can<br />
say now is that it will be something really<br />
extreme, an audio-violence experience that<br />
will amaze and shock you!<br />
Will this probably go a bit into the direction<br />
of "Thalassa Dominion IV”? There<br />
are several very dramatic and dissonant<br />
parts in this song and also some hyperspeed<br />
blastbeats?<br />
Yes there will be inhuman blastbeats in this<br />
darker project but it will be nothing like Thalassa<br />
Dominion IV, you really haven’t heard<br />
anything like this before… If Dol Ammad<br />
sound unique, then this is ages more alien to<br />
the ears. It is an audio violence that scares<br />
the hell out of all my friends when they visit<br />
me while I work on this stuff ;-P Imagine the<br />
cruellest grind-gore death<br />
metal band but with an<br />
electronica speedcore<br />
instrumentation! But<br />
that’s for the future to<br />
<strong>com</strong>e… ;)<br />
You seem to be a very<br />
spiritual man. I read<br />
somewhere that you<br />
are practising Yoga<br />
and also have a certain<br />
interest in topics like<br />
astrology. What do you<br />
think about so called<br />
esotericism? Of course<br />
you can also choose<br />
another word for it,<br />
since "esotericism” has<br />
been misused a lot<br />
within the past decades.<br />
I am a man that thinks a<br />
lot, in every second of my<br />
life my brain is in constant thoughts and<br />
ideas and in day-dream-imaginations. I often<br />
suffer from insomnia, megalomania and lack<br />
of concentration into what is known as "real<br />
life”. I always <strong>com</strong>pare everything that happens<br />
to mega-cosmic and micro-cosmic<br />
scales and this can be very tiring sometimes<br />
especially when you try to relax. I am very<br />
interested in Yoga but not so much in astrology.<br />
Maybe you confused it with astronomy<br />
which is a fascinating science. Regarding<br />
esotericism, as in knowledge that few can<br />
grasp and remember, I think we are heading<br />
towards ages of esotericism since the huge<br />
clueless masses are undereducated in a world<br />
where knowledge is so freely and easily<br />
available. You can see it in all aspects of life,<br />
49<br />
music – art – politics – society. An elite-few<br />
in a world of zombies…<br />
With mega-cosmic and micro-cosmic<br />
scales to you mean thinking in fateful<br />
analogies? Like e.g. bears escape from<br />
the zoo in several American cities and at<br />
the same time a bear market arises at<br />
the New York Stock Exchange? And you<br />
think there may be a secret relationship<br />
between those coincidences, an analogical<br />
relationship between microsphere<br />
and macrosphere?<br />
Yes and no at the same time. Even the words<br />
"Yes” and "No” which often carry the result of<br />
a decision can be a microsphere and macrosphere<br />
respectively. My mind drifts helplessly<br />
through thoughts like when I make a cup of<br />
coffee at the same time a supernova blasts a<br />
star into shock waves of energy. This fusion<br />
was the result of years of the star’s aging<br />
under which star a centipede<br />
on earth is devouring a rat or<br />
a mother scorpion is carrying<br />
its first scorplings on her<br />
back. It’s this constant zoomins<br />
and outs that go on inside<br />
me…I can’t know if they<br />
mean anything or if there is a<br />
secret relationship between<br />
them… It would be scary if<br />
there was.<br />
Can insomnia be an inspiring<br />
state of mind for you?<br />
Do you often create music<br />
while being sleepless and<br />
overtired? Or is it more a<br />
state of mind where you<br />
cannot concentrate on<br />
proper musical work anymore?<br />
Yes I am creative when I am<br />
tired and stressed. But it<br />
starts to have an impact on<br />
my health, I can’t remember<br />
the last time I was relaxed mentally…<br />
You said you aren’t a big fan of song<br />
lyrics. What about books? Do you have<br />
any favourite authors? Or do you prefer<br />
sound over word in general?<br />
Oh no, I love books! My favourite authors are<br />
Douglas Adams and Phillip Pullman. I just<br />
don’t pay that much attention to words when<br />
I listen to music. It is a whole different experience.<br />
I do prefer to listen to music in my<br />
free time but I often try to steal some time<br />
for a good book also.<br />
The South Park version of the famous<br />
DOL AMMAD band picture is great. Are
you a South Park fan or did you just like<br />
the idea of having a funny caricature of<br />
DOL AMMAD? Which musician’s cartoon<br />
do you like most? I think DC Cooper is<br />
portrayed very well.<br />
Yes I love South Park! Our good friend Ntennis<br />
Papakostas had this idea to do a South<br />
Park version of Dol Ammad using online software<br />
that someone has created. Ntennis sent<br />
me an email asking for my permission and for<br />
some details of the members! Like who have<br />
blue eyes etc! I think he did an amazing work<br />
and reproduction of the entire band but I<br />
can’t stop laughing with Alex Holzwarth and<br />
his bongos! I also like my lightsaber ;-P<br />
50<br />
Okay, Thanasis, thank you a lot for the<br />
very pleasurable conversation. I am sure<br />
we’ll talk again soon on your forth<strong>com</strong>ing<br />
works in 2008. The last words belong<br />
to you.<br />
Thank you Chrystof and the rest of the AGM<br />
crew for the amazing support and pure<br />
friendship! It was an honour and one of the<br />
best interviews I’ve experienced. I would also<br />
like to thank all our fellow music travellers<br />
and to ask their patience for the up<strong>com</strong>ing<br />
Dol Theeta releases. Various reasons beyond<br />
my powers made it impossible for me to<br />
make a 2007 release. What I can promise is<br />
that in the first months of 2008 you will be<br />
presented with a massive album. A huge<br />
music adventure of space melodies and inner<br />
emotions that I am sure you’ll love. To my<br />
ears it feels like the best music I’ve written<br />
so far in my life. I wish you all the best for<br />
the New Year, may you live free and happy<br />
and may you never stop dreaming! Space on!
ANGIZIA<br />
A World of Their Own<br />
By Jobst<br />
Only the name itself should make your mind<br />
rumble. Saying Anzigia is unique and bordershaking<br />
is to say the least. Let alone the<br />
words, the music stands for itself, a wacky<br />
world to dive in. In order to try and solve<br />
some of the mysteries behind all of this, I<br />
called upon the mastermind behind this ensemble<br />
to investigate some more. Wel<strong>com</strong>e<br />
to the bizarre world of Michael Haas and<br />
Angizia.<br />
I think that Angizia is an indescribable<br />
project. When I introduced it to people,<br />
they naturally asked me, "what the hell<br />
is it?" and I replied: "well, it's... theatre<br />
metal", so that plain mortals can understand,<br />
and they've said, "Oh, so it's a<br />
rock Opera!" and afterwards I haven't<br />
managed to explain, nor define Angizia.<br />
What do you think of people's efforts to<br />
define Angizia? Can you define it? Do<br />
you even want to?<br />
The main problem in describing Angizia for<br />
other people is connected with the matter,<br />
that we didn't pursue a certain musical style<br />
in the course of our 10 years and 6 albums<br />
lasting existence. For many Angizia friends<br />
our last album "Ein Toter fährt gern Ringelspiel"<br />
was a brilliant radio play with morbid<br />
demands, for others it was a special kind of<br />
"musical theatre" with many figurative and<br />
narrative moments and for others it was a<br />
rock opera with influences from jazz, circus<br />
51<br />
music, dramatic musical, classic and klezmer.<br />
I am not that satisfied with all these tons of<br />
simplifications, which many of so called<br />
"original labels" use to explain the music of<br />
their bands in magazines or for promotion<br />
flyers. Believe me, I hate proclamations such<br />
as "They sound like the old Dark Funeral and<br />
the new Dimmu Borgir!", "They are the musical<br />
brothers of Cradle of Filth" or "They sound<br />
like Burzum and Darkthrone!". The principle<br />
is very simple. Labels wish to inform, that<br />
their new signed band sounds like all their<br />
other bands. But that's the point and for sure<br />
a "music-economic" problem for music such<br />
as Angizia, Devil Doll or Korova, which is not<br />
reducible to one simple word or a trashy<br />
<strong>com</strong>pare. Bands such as Angizia, Devil Doll or<br />
Korova have defined and invented themselves<br />
and are not to categorize in shitty<br />
drawers, which are necessary to guarantee<br />
full and fat label wallets. I am sure: All these<br />
bands are not appropriate for labels of these<br />
"modern times", which just search for bands<br />
that have a very similar style, but a different<br />
name. That explains, why Angizia is not that<br />
interesting for money horny labels. From an<br />
economic and profit-oriented view Angizia is<br />
really uninteresting.<br />
Angizia was always bound to my special visions<br />
and influences and my ideals to tell<br />
bizarre stories with bizarre singers and instruments.<br />
The bizarreness of Angizia could<br />
be explained with 20 or 30 words, but nevertheless<br />
so many people react the same,<br />
nearly boring way: "What the hell is that?" I<br />
don't like all these well meant bold and eyecatching<br />
terms such as "theatre metal", "rock<br />
opera", "classic metal" or "metal with classical<br />
influences". To say it much easier: I don't<br />
really like to explain Angizia for the masses.<br />
Angizia is done to express original and unrecoverable<br />
music. If Angizia dies, a whole<br />
musical drawer is lost. That's it.<br />
Speaking of definitions, I had the impression<br />
that you're some sort of superartist:<br />
write music and plays, sing, conduct<br />
the ensemble etc. How do you capture<br />
yourself, within and out of the<br />
Angizia <strong>com</strong>plex?<br />
Well, all these things you have mentioned are<br />
neither difficult, nor supernormal or out-
standing. That's a normal thing for so many<br />
artists. It's a circumstance that <strong>com</strong>es with<br />
my certain urge to realize my own plays.<br />
That gives kind of "supervitality" and Special<br />
Forces for all these creative works and tasks.<br />
Singing, realizing and performing my own<br />
figures is really easy, also making music to a<br />
theme which I have fired in my brain or explaining<br />
special intentions to other musicians<br />
and singers.<br />
Conducting the ensemble for sure is the most<br />
difficult job, because there are so many different<br />
dates, persons and characters to handle,<br />
that I often had to spend 3 or 4 hours a<br />
day for telephone calls and about 20 hours a<br />
week to canvass all the musicians, singers<br />
and painters with my car for improving all<br />
these details, which are necessary to make<br />
the whole thing perfected. Yes, indeed -<br />
that's the most difficult job in Angizia.<br />
Stressing out your point on Angizia being<br />
"unprofitable" for labels, that might<br />
explain why only the two first albums<br />
delivered through Napalm Records roof',<br />
while all the others came to the world by<br />
your own label? Was it your decision,<br />
breaking to a label-free road, or the<br />
"market demands" led to let go? Along<br />
the way, did another labels pursued interest<br />
or did you wanted to keep Angizia<br />
forever independent, in Speight of possible<br />
signing?<br />
Well, keeping Angizia independent in retrospect<br />
for sure was the best decision for "39<br />
Jahre für den Leierkastenmann" and "Ein<br />
Toter fährt gern Ringelspiel" (our last two<br />
albums). I am absolutely convinced of that.<br />
52<br />
We had the absolute and unrestricted power<br />
to make unalterable and un<strong>com</strong>promising<br />
music, epic and in general INDIVIDUAL ART.<br />
Suddenly there was no "know-it-all"-label<br />
boss with daffy ideas and continual improvement<br />
suggestions, neither related to music,<br />
nor to layout, promotion and distribution. If I<br />
<strong>com</strong>pare Angizia to times, where we had<br />
been signed to Napalm/Records, we now<br />
really had the unique possibility to escape<br />
from this <strong>com</strong>pacted and "always the same<br />
and in one direction"-thinking of Napalm,<br />
which certainly wasn't the best thing for<br />
Angizia itself.<br />
Napalm was an interesting label for Angizia,<br />
when they had been smaller and "(in the full<br />
sense of the word) more "independent". This<br />
time (1995-1996) they supported many<br />
original bands of the 90ies (Angizia, Korova,<br />
Abigor...) - and they really had "soul", time<br />
and will to encourage there "beloved music".<br />
But as soon as they have seen their chance<br />
to have a big slice of the suddenly existing<br />
and expecting money with "undergroundmusic"<br />
by promoting un<strong>com</strong>plicated, flat and<br />
"naked-wife-and-tits"-music they lost all their<br />
privileges and forgot all their bands from the<br />
"starting area". That's a phenomenon they<br />
share with many other labels worldwide. So<br />
many labels wished to grow or "expand" and<br />
really shared any trend, a wife with big tits<br />
on oafish covers could originate. Angizia and<br />
other bands all of a sudden became "most<br />
unwanted", but ought to have get a special<br />
promotion for a different segment of music<br />
and music listeners. Of course we didn't join<br />
these shallow trends and of course we hadn't<br />
been ready for musical <strong>com</strong>promises with<br />
efficient simplifications and boring chords or
arrangements, which became a trend<br />
throughout all music styles in this new millennium.<br />
On the contrary, we have developed<br />
our music in an in<strong>com</strong>parable direction and<br />
improved our work day for day - a long way<br />
of music, which was announced by suddenly<br />
omnipresent (but once individual oriented)<br />
labels in the years 2000, 2001 or 2002.<br />
But I have to <strong>com</strong>pliment Napalm for their (it<br />
seems so) successfully economic development.<br />
In this regard Angizia and Napalm<br />
went different paths in music - and both Napalm<br />
and Angizia did a respectable job, I<br />
think. Of course I<br />
couldn't <strong>com</strong>prehend<br />
their new orientation -<br />
"to keep with the time<br />
and every possible<br />
trend", but to be honest<br />
Angizia after "Das<br />
Schachbrett des<br />
Trommelbuben Zacharias"<br />
didn't match with<br />
Napalm's label policy<br />
and all these gothic<br />
similar releases.<br />
Angizia is deep, bizarre, morbid and unconventional<br />
music and has included very interesting<br />
impulses (polka, klezmer, jazz, rock,<br />
metal, classic, radio plays, modern theater,<br />
circus music...) which weren't that optimal<br />
for "angry or pure erotic music". "Gothic<br />
metal", such as Napalm pursued after Angizia,<br />
Korova and Co. I have disliked for its basically<br />
flat and simple outputs. I never felt<br />
thoughtfulness in this music, but of course, it<br />
way very easy to consume after 8 hours work<br />
a day or especially for relaxation. Angizia in<br />
53<br />
no moment of a 10 years lasting existence<br />
was done for relaxation.<br />
So Irene Denner and I hat to discuss a new<br />
situation in 1998, shortly after Napalm/Black<br />
Rose had released our last album ("Das<br />
Schachbrett des Trommelbuben Zacharias")<br />
in this co-operation. And we decided to keep<br />
Angizia alive without the financial support of<br />
an interested label and without a functioning<br />
distribution or sales network. "I did it my way<br />
- and it was an important way for Angizia." -<br />
Independent from many money horny labels<br />
of nowadays.<br />
Of course we all the time searched for suitable<br />
labels, who would share and support our<br />
ideals and this very special "bizarre music<br />
style" (the whole shebang) - first and foremost<br />
because of the fact, that we would have<br />
got anymore possibilities for our albums and<br />
much more time and money for our studio<br />
work. I really had the slight hope, that there<br />
will exist a few labels, which are really ready<br />
for Angizia, ready for our music and ready for<br />
our intentions - but of no avail.<br />
We really experienced hard (not to say "very<br />
hard") times while being absolutely independent.<br />
In this situation you are independent<br />
from everything and we managed every<br />
step ourselves with no financial help from any<br />
label or distributor. Angizia - that means 12<br />
or more professional musicians, which we<br />
had to finance. No one in Angizia was kind of<br />
"non-professional". This luxury - collecting<br />
professional artists for Angizia - had cost<br />
much money, which we had to pay ourselves,<br />
but it's a most important thing of Angizia to<br />
convey my plots and stories for you listeners<br />
with brilliant musicians.<br />
Today I am really tired of all these labels who<br />
"love our music", but have no courage to<br />
release this "beloved and special stuff". In<br />
process of all these years (especially in the<br />
new millennium) I became really disappointed<br />
from many people, working in this<br />
"so original and non-<strong>com</strong>mercial underground",<br />
because they once proclaimed "that<br />
Angizia is one of the most outstanding bands<br />
ever" and with this thinking they also promised<br />
"all the world and his wife" to support
Angizia - adequate and extensive. And what<br />
happened - many of them forgot their<br />
thoughts and jumped on all these trendy<br />
wagons, which have driven in another direction.<br />
Many of these self-appointed "trendsetters in<br />
underground music" of today destroyed various<br />
original bands from the past by supporting<br />
this special plagiarism of crappy and<br />
shitty bands, which flooded countless magazines,<br />
fanzines and websites and beyond that<br />
all the brains of magazine readers and music<br />
listeners. THE SIMPLIFICATON OF MUSIC<br />
WAS AN ATROCITY AND FOR SURE "THE<br />
DEATH" FOR THE FURTHER DEVELOPMENT<br />
OF QUALITATIVE AND ORIGINAL UNDER-<br />
GROUND MUSIC. Sure I have respect for the<br />
financial success of some underground labels<br />
and it's indeed legitimate to earn money with<br />
superficial music, because that's the will of<br />
some 100.000 listeners. But it's sad enough,<br />
that many original bands disappeared as a<br />
result of "craven label policy".<br />
Even an interesting narrow segment of interesting<br />
labels has missed the chance to present<br />
really original music (and beside Angizia<br />
I could name 10 other bands with a similar<br />
destiny). To be honest: For me it's an inconceivable<br />
outrage, that bands such as Devil<br />
Doll, Korova or Angizia couldn't be supported<br />
from one of these "great, new and original<br />
labels, which much more than other labels<br />
support individual art and especial music!" O<br />
yes, I "haunted" the label strategies of some<br />
labels and all their pseudo-artistic stuff,<br />
which they released in the last 4 or 5 years.<br />
All in all meaningless music - and many<br />
bands out of this "new generation" proudly<br />
announced in interviews, that they have been<br />
big fans from Angizia, Devil Doll or Korova.<br />
That's very ironic.<br />
Regarding Angizia's unique blend of influences,<br />
can you describe the main artists<br />
that gave you inspiration and spiritual<br />
guidance, if so? Moreover, I must<br />
ask you about the Jewish influence, both<br />
54<br />
in music and in some epical motives -<br />
well, as a Jew that somehow connect to<br />
this cultural world, I was a bit astonished<br />
within the first listening and it remained<br />
quite an enigma for me. Can you<br />
shed some light upon it?<br />
I think there are not really special artists<br />
which influenced me in my work for Angizia. I<br />
have written my plays with the intention to<br />
launch an absolutely new "music style" for a<br />
serious audience. I had so much inspiration<br />
to do that, but there also have been so many<br />
elements in Angizia, which descended from<br />
artists such as Irene Denner, Cedric Müller,<br />
Emmerich Haimer or Gabriele Böck. Of course<br />
I had the last word, but with all these mentioned<br />
artists, especially with Irene Denner<br />
and Gabriele Böck I always felt united for the<br />
same aim - "presenting a <strong>com</strong>pletely unusual<br />
and inimitable musical creature." We pulled<br />
together and have worshiped our own creation.<br />
In the last years Angizia was a small firm,<br />
consisting of Irene Denner and me in economic<br />
and artistic belongings. I also think,<br />
that there had been so many irreplaceable<br />
artists for special Angizia albums - for example<br />
Christof Niederwieser for "Das Tagebuch<br />
der Hanna Anikin", Aliosha Biz for "Ein Toter<br />
fährt gern Ringelspiel" or Krzysztof Dobrek<br />
and Jochen Stock for "39 Jahre für den Leierkastenmann"<br />
- cause they have surrounded<br />
basic Angizia elements such as the singing of<br />
Irene Denner or the authoritative piano play<br />
with unique individual singing, acting or playing<br />
(an instrument).<br />
In the last years I personally found inspiration<br />
in Klezmer, Circus Music, Classic (especially<br />
Russian <strong>com</strong>posers such as Kabalewskij,<br />
Schostakowitsch, Tschaikowsky, Rachmaninow,<br />
but also Schumann and Brahms),<br />
mostly perfected Jewish music and Russian<br />
folklore. I absolutely admire in<strong>com</strong>parable<br />
spoken voices (Otto Sander, Klaus Kinski,<br />
Ignaz Kirchner, Meret Becker...) and absorb
special soundtracks and in particular scores<br />
from John Williams (MEMOIRS OF A GEISHA,<br />
SCHINDLER'S LIST, MUNICH). I think, there<br />
exists just one leading violinist - namely the<br />
Jewish musician ITHZAK PERLMAN - who is<br />
able to transport such an emotional power for<br />
the score of a movie such as "MEMOIRS OF A<br />
GEISHA". If any other musician would play<br />
the solo for the leading theme of "Memoirs of<br />
a geisha", you would definitely hear that.<br />
Watching and feeling Perlman's intensive<br />
violin play makes me highly infected - in this<br />
case I watch special movies sequences 100<br />
times. In such moments I go in trance.<br />
Well, for Angizia in special it was not difficult<br />
to dip into special (musical) cultures. Our 3rd<br />
album "Das Schachbrett des Trommelbuben<br />
Zacharias", but also "Das Tagebuch der<br />
Hanna Anikin" have been very Russian oriented.<br />
"39 Jahre für den Leierkastenmann"<br />
and "Ein Toter fährt gern Ringelspiel" on the<br />
other hand had been dedicated to the Jewish<br />
soul in music in main parts of our <strong>com</strong>positions.<br />
I think, from 2001 to 2004 I felt like a<br />
Jew because I was interested in so many<br />
Jewish themes, superficially "Jewish music<br />
and films", that I felt the decision to involve<br />
similar elements for "39 Jahre für den Leierkastenmann"<br />
and "Ein Toter fährt gern<br />
Ringelspiel". Jewish music touched my soul -<br />
and I have enjoyed it to <strong>com</strong>pose Jewish<br />
themes for my own plays. The clarinet and<br />
violin solos for "Ein Toter fährt gern Ringelspiel"<br />
have been transported by mostly perfected<br />
instrumentalists, thus they became so<br />
much vigorous and emotional.<br />
Remaining in the influences area, aside<br />
from the musical characteristics, Angizia<br />
is also correspondent with the great tra-<br />
55<br />
dition of theater in Austria, as I see it.<br />
Do you agree with that? Can you point<br />
other (theatrical, lyrical) influences on<br />
which the concept of Angizia was conceived?<br />
Angizia is not really corresponded with the<br />
traditions of Austrian theater. Maybe it was<br />
pure chance that some parts of "Die Kemenaten<br />
scharlachroter Lichter" sound like<br />
Austrian operettas, but although the theater<br />
itself maybe is the most important vigour in<br />
Angizia, we are not <strong>com</strong>parable with typical<br />
"musical plays" or "Austrian dramatic art".<br />
Angizia is a very lively project with very<br />
wacky and extraordinary voices and instruments.<br />
I think, they would be too wacky to<br />
include them in repertories of our opera<br />
houses here in Austria. The medium "Theater"<br />
is obvious in so many sequences of<br />
Angizia's music, but the "Austrian theatre<br />
tradition" especially is connected with a conventional,<br />
classical and proper idea of "Theatre".<br />
Angizia is neither conventional, nor<br />
proper. Lyrically I tried to create non-typical<br />
librettos for non-typical plots. I don't think<br />
that Angizia follows a certain tradition, neither<br />
in music, nor in lyrics, but we surely<br />
embodied a special type of "crazy theatre" for<br />
almost 10 years.<br />
Lyrically, how did you get the ideas for<br />
the plays?<br />
I think I am much more cinematic than epical<br />
thinking and working - thus my lyrical work is<br />
bound to many theoretical pictures and paintings<br />
I set together to the whole thing, while<br />
searching for the most perfected conception.<br />
I am a critical cineaste and really intrigued<br />
with so many different films and theatrical<br />
plots - therefore my main inspiration is cinematic<br />
and not really lyrical. Possibly I pro-
ceed much more like a film director and not<br />
like a dramatic adviser. In any case I first of<br />
all <strong>com</strong>plete my plot and in the course of the<br />
finished plot I write my libretto. Furthermore<br />
I am not in permanent search of new ideas,<br />
while creating a new Angizia play. Lyrically<br />
(and I speak from the libretto itself) I always<br />
think in theatrical monologues and dialogues.<br />
This way enables a more dramatic orientated<br />
art and allows most lively and omnipresent<br />
figures. Angizia plays are typical for its (social<br />
and vocal) interaction between central characters<br />
of a story. And they are only well done<br />
with different and interesting figures. Before<br />
a story is ready, I need my honest faith in<br />
interesting characters such as a<br />
weird Jewish organ grinder or a<br />
chess playing Russian drummer<br />
boy. It's for sure my most important<br />
aim to develop and<br />
process unaided and independent<br />
ideas, figures and stories.<br />
This is the first step in creating<br />
something special. I never glom<br />
ideas from other plots, plays or<br />
stories. That's idiotic and boring!<br />
The main theme behind "Ein<br />
Toter fährt gern Ringelspiel” is<br />
the tightrope walk between<br />
death’s conscious melancholy<br />
and its ironic sarcasm. I wished<br />
to create a surrealistic story<br />
with bizarre figures and their lively characters<br />
in the scenery of Königsberg’s cemetery after<br />
the 2nd world war. I believed in the force of a<br />
metaphysical world and a more satirical access<br />
to "death” and its related themes. It’s<br />
one author’s most interesting "role”, when he<br />
has the possibility to show one figure in two<br />
lives: Elias Hohlberg, organ-grinder and protagonist<br />
of "39 Jahre für den Leierkastenmann”<br />
came to death within the story of our<br />
4th album, but relives a really dreadful, but<br />
characteristic existence on devil’s foggy and<br />
marshy cemetery within our 5th album "Ein<br />
Toter fährt gern Ringelspiel”.<br />
I wrote his bony stature and corpse in a bizarre<br />
story round black puppets, childlike<br />
themes such as rocking horses, marionettes,<br />
children rhymes, but also wished to create a<br />
stage for the protagonist’s nostalgic and sorry<br />
view on his earthly living and existence. Thus<br />
the drama of this story is a classical one, but<br />
associated with lots of shudder, evil, sarcasm,<br />
irony and morbidity. I think, the morbidity of<br />
"Ein Toter fährt gern Ringelspiel” is the most<br />
characterizing specification of this 5th Angizia<br />
album.<br />
The main inspiration for "Ein Toter fährt gern<br />
Ringelspiel” was the third and surrealistic act<br />
of "39 Jahre für den Leierkastenmann”. I<br />
56<br />
wished to create a whole story round a dead<br />
and buried organ grinder, which shouldn’t be<br />
too severe or serious in the sense of "Dead is<br />
cruel and evil!” or "A cemetery is always calm<br />
and certainly a place for eternal rest!” The<br />
story is always written with a certain wink<br />
and I always had the intention to hide many<br />
nostalgic and cunning elements behind the<br />
main story line, which have to be discovered<br />
from the listener when devouring this 75<br />
minutes. Of course THE DEAD itself is a main<br />
and omnipresent figure, which has place in<br />
each chapter of this play. But it’s the same in<br />
love songs, or not? Here "love” is the main<br />
parameter of the lyrical approach. So a listener<br />
shouldn’t knock against the<br />
partly doomed and sarcastic lyrics<br />
of "Ein Toter fährt gern Ringelspiel”.<br />
Every Angizia work had to do with<br />
dying, the death and his consequences.<br />
With the first albums we<br />
have shown a more limited and<br />
poetic access to the death of protagonists<br />
such as Konstanz Bürster<br />
("Die Kemenaten scharlachroter<br />
Lichter”), Hanna Anikin’s<br />
mother ("Das Tagebuch der<br />
Hanna Anikin”) or Elias Hohlberg<br />
("39 Jahre für den Leierkastenmann”)<br />
– and I have to repeat a<br />
statement of the Austrian actor<br />
and theatrical director Paulus<br />
Manker in this connection, who once meant:<br />
"Every serious artist needs a proper relation<br />
to death and its soul!”<br />
Always a hard and tricky question -<br />
what's your favorite Angizia album, and<br />
why?<br />
Definitely "Ein Toter fährt gern Ringelspiel".<br />
It's the most courageous and intractable album,<br />
because of the fact, that the plot itself<br />
is more controversial, peculiar and narrative<br />
than other Angizia plays. It's so difficult to<br />
stage and experience a figure in calm and<br />
quiet moments (only voice or voice and piano...)<br />
during a musical work with aggressive<br />
and "rhythmical rock-jazz-and-circus" music -<br />
the interesting opposition to enable an album<br />
with bizarre and quiet narrative elements and<br />
figures on one side, but also loud, florid and<br />
very lively sequences on the other I implemented<br />
with "Ein Toter fährt gern Ringelspiel".<br />
I know it's kind of untypical, unpopular and<br />
"non-<strong>com</strong>mercial" to offer different spoken<br />
voices between <strong>com</strong>plex, dramatic music -<br />
but "Ein Toter fährt gern Ringelspiel" I did in<br />
the thought of a <strong>com</strong>pletely inefficient and<br />
uneconomic musical existence. It took so<br />
much time, money and energy to realize this<br />
album that I am really proud of the 76 minutes<br />
lasting result with which I can identify in
every single moment while listening. Maybe<br />
it's a <strong>com</strong>mon principle of an artist to identify<br />
with the latest work best. Well, I think every<br />
Angizia album has raised different expectations<br />
and there are really various opinions<br />
concerning the favorite Angizia album of our<br />
listeners. I noticed that within a questionnaire<br />
in our website's guestbook<br />
(www.angizia.<strong>com</strong>).<br />
Personally I am convinced, that "39 Jahre für<br />
den Leierkastenmann" was the most important<br />
Angizia album, because of the fact, that<br />
we pointed the way, which we wished to go in<br />
the new millennium (more crazy elements,<br />
very eccentric voices...). More than that we<br />
experienced in new studios, with new musicians<br />
and arrangements and a more theatrical<br />
and "circussed" way of (musical and lyrical)<br />
thinking - independent from any label or<br />
label strategy.<br />
"Die Kemenaten scharlachroter Lichter" for<br />
sure was one of the most audacious debut<br />
albums of an up<strong>com</strong>ing band. It was such a<br />
<strong>com</strong>plex and baroque styled play with a fantastic<br />
17 years old piano player, who was<br />
able to transport every<br />
single thought of my<br />
extensic baroque plot.<br />
It was a fantastic work<br />
with so many idealistic<br />
musicians and artists.<br />
In this connection it<br />
shouldn't be forgotten,<br />
that we had been no<br />
20 years at all at this<br />
moment. And many<br />
contemporaries in the<br />
90ies released Seattle-<br />
Rock or in any case<br />
music in honor of their<br />
big paragons such as<br />
Pearl Jam, Paradise<br />
Lost or <strong>Metal</strong>lica. "Die<br />
Kemenaten scharlachroter<br />
Lichter" however<br />
was an independent<br />
release and so<br />
many musical journalists couldn't <strong>com</strong>prehend<br />
what we wished to implement with this<br />
"new-kind-classical music-rock". O yes, I<br />
remember really strange Angizia-reviews in<br />
this time.<br />
I also enjoyed "Das Tagebuch der Hanna<br />
Anikin", which especially in Mexico was the<br />
most beloved Angizia-Album ever, because I<br />
often evoke the fantastic cooperation with<br />
Christof Niederwieser, an outstanding singer<br />
and one of these great personalities in the<br />
avantgarde-metal underground.<br />
"Das Schachbrett des Trommelbuben Zacharias"<br />
itself was Angizia's most beloved album<br />
in Russia and Ukraine. In 1998 I dedicated<br />
57<br />
Angizia's music to the Russian soul of music.<br />
It was my personal approach to a Russian<br />
motivated plot and the symbolization of Russia's<br />
society thinking with a simple chess<br />
board. And Angizia sounded so special and<br />
rare on this album. "Das Schachbrett des<br />
Trommelbuben Zacharias" was a very important<br />
chapter in our own era.<br />
In general I have to say, that I always<br />
searched for new and exciting musical and<br />
lyrical elements with every new Angizia album,<br />
which should contrast pleasantly from<br />
former works. But in any case a listener had<br />
to feel: This is (a hundred per cent) ANGIZIA<br />
- and nothing else. So I have to stress, that<br />
no Angizia album was done to <strong>com</strong>pare it<br />
with other Angizia works in "quality" or to<br />
locate a special "improvement" as we always<br />
worked for the intention(s) of a play and the<br />
individual story itself. I loathe the poor fact,<br />
that so many bands just release modifications<br />
of their last works (the same ideas, the same<br />
sound, the same lyrics...) to have a constant<br />
audience and a steady inquiry. That's really<br />
mind-bending and artistically uninteresting.<br />
I've understood that the band is currently<br />
frozen. Any particular reason for<br />
this status? Any intentions of bringing<br />
another score? Are you active in other<br />
musical / literary / theatrical frames?<br />
Angizia is currently frozen, because of many<br />
different things, but in general familiar, economic<br />
and temporal reasons. I don't know if I<br />
should like, love, deny or refuse this status,<br />
but it's a fact, which was brought with the<br />
problems of independent existing. I am proud<br />
of having released intensive albums through<br />
my own small label "Medium Theater". But I
eached the point, where I had to say: My<br />
next work would be once more a very costly,<br />
extensive and for sure outshining release,<br />
which I am not really standing at the moment.<br />
In Angizia in process of time all became bigger,<br />
larger, more intense and expensive and<br />
for sure more energetic. It's nearly impossible<br />
to release a 6th Angizia-album with own<br />
financial resources and it's less promising to<br />
find a label, which has will and courage to<br />
realize a similar project. It's much more unimaginable<br />
to find a label in the nowadays,<br />
which we couldn't find in the past. Otherwise<br />
I am not sure, if I am ready for dealing with<br />
one of these money-horny people, which<br />
present their stuff as "pseudo-original" instead<br />
of more or less well done plagiarism. I<br />
am not active in other musical, literary or<br />
theatrical frames at the moment, but I have<br />
some conceptions for more literary orientated<br />
projects (with or without musical participation).<br />
In fact I don’t mind, if 100, 1000 or 10<br />
000 people listen to my plays. Angizia albums<br />
wouldn’t be less<br />
good or professional<br />
if it would be just<br />
10 listeners world<br />
wide. CD sales have<br />
nothing to do with<br />
musical quality. But<br />
that's an attitude I<br />
won't share with<br />
any label boss of<br />
the nowadays.<br />
How did the Austrian<br />
metal scene<br />
accept Angizia?<br />
In the 90ies the<br />
Austrian metal<br />
scene consisted of<br />
Abigor, Summoning, Korova and Golden<br />
Dawn... and maybe we had been part of this<br />
scene. But that wasn't really important for<br />
our own development. In fact Angizia was<br />
accepted from all these bands, especially<br />
from Korova, Abigor and Summoning - and<br />
otherwise we also appreciated all these bands<br />
and projects, which all had been part of Napalm<br />
Records. I really had pleasant contact<br />
with Christof and Moritz from Korova, Thomas,<br />
Peter and Michael from<br />
Abigor/Summoning and Alex from Amestigon,<br />
with which we released a split album for Napalm/Records<br />
in 1995. At the end of the<br />
90ies I found deeply friendship with Jochen<br />
from Dornenreich, which today most probably<br />
is the most popular Austrian metal band.<br />
The Austrian underground "lived on” important<br />
personalities and many interesting and<br />
very different projects. Each of these projects<br />
has given this underground an individual note<br />
– and it’s sad enough, that bands such as<br />
58<br />
Korova do not exist anymore. Today it's for<br />
sure impossible to speak about a "scene".<br />
There are so many meaningless bands, which<br />
often disappear shortly after being founded.<br />
Angizia and Korova especially often had main<br />
problems to convince thousands of Austrians<br />
with their really eccentric music, as both collectives<br />
still had been busy to pull their original<br />
ideas through a "no original” music scene.<br />
To be honest: Angizia has much more fans in<br />
Mexico, Russia, Greece or Canada than in<br />
Austria itself. Angizia’s music is very provocative,<br />
sulky, obstinate and thoughtless original<br />
– and more than that our music demands<br />
serious musical empathy and precise listeners.<br />
That is all in all reasons enough for many<br />
conventional listeners to buy more shallow<br />
music instead. Angizia is strenuous, but<br />
qualitative and most professional. I never felt<br />
to be part of a "metal band". Angizia in no<br />
time of a 10 years lasting existence was a<br />
"metal band".<br />
Since we're dealing<br />
with <strong>Avantgarde</strong><br />
metal, can<br />
you describe what<br />
this concept<br />
means to you?<br />
Who are your favorite<br />
acts within<br />
the genre?<br />
I think Angizia is a<br />
logical representative<br />
of a project<br />
"beyond the border".<br />
Our unadjusted selfcenteredness<br />
and<br />
the conscious distance<br />
from musical<br />
categories developed our music much more<br />
"avant-garde" than adapted to musical trends<br />
or standards - above all we used instruments<br />
in a nearly unusual way. We stressed classical<br />
instruments in rock-like musical sequences<br />
and connected classical singing with<br />
eccentric voices. My plots are as good as<br />
inappropriate in every METAL context and our<br />
arrangements have nothing to do with any<br />
other existing musical project. They are peculiar<br />
and unadapted. Some people say they<br />
are out of place in a musical "pseudo revolution"<br />
which is full of sex, Satan, gothic, evil<br />
and in general clear and simple words (for<br />
the masses). That's mainstream and I don't<br />
know how to shape "mainstream music"!<br />
"<strong>Avantgarde</strong>" in any case is a conscious distance<br />
from traditional listening and <strong>com</strong>posing<br />
habits. An <strong>Avantgarde</strong> musician evokes<br />
discords and dislikes every fuckin' search for<br />
more harmony in an arrangement to sound<br />
more plausible for 100.000 listeners. Avant-
garde (metal) bands need courage for atonality<br />
and have to be provocative, innovative<br />
and stylistically confident. That's it.<br />
Angizia is AVANTGARDE MUSIC, but no<br />
avantgarde metal band. <strong>Metal</strong> is a category,<br />
which we didn't belong in 10 years of our<br />
existence. <strong>Metal</strong> is dominated by guitars -<br />
and we used e-guitars at best differently and<br />
consciously neoteric or "non-metal-like". My<br />
ultimate <strong>Avantgarde</strong> metal bands had been<br />
ARCTURUS (in the first place), ULVER, VED<br />
BUENS ENDE, possibly THE KOVENANT (in<br />
times of "Animatronic"), DEVIL DOLL (in very<br />
special moments of their fantastic music) and<br />
for sure KOROVA. From all present "<strong>Avantgarde</strong><br />
metal" substitutes I just honor FAN-<br />
TOMAS and DORNENREICH.<br />
Most of so called "<strong>Avantgarde</strong> metal bands"<br />
of the nowadays cannot touch my soul at all,<br />
although there exist of course several well<br />
done projects with great musicians and interesting<br />
music. I always prefer the original -<br />
and all mentioned bands and projects are<br />
unique and unrepeatable. Even this is a very<br />
important fact of AVANTGARDE MUSIC.<br />
59<br />
I really appreciate the intention of Christof<br />
and Katja to forward a conception for avantgarde<br />
music and I deeply support the whole<br />
idea of "avantgarde-metal.<strong>com</strong>" It's an important<br />
platform for all these bands that can<br />
or could meet the requirements of "avantgarde<br />
music". It's a collection of the most<br />
significant "avantgarde-metal-bands", which<br />
themselves could bear up against this so<br />
fuckin' boring and adapted music hype, which<br />
apparently is and was so much interesting for<br />
the <strong>com</strong>mercial orientation of music labels<br />
and managers in the last 10 or 12 years.<br />
But I am sure: The underlying quality of<br />
<strong>Avantgarde</strong> (metal) bands and many appreciable<br />
projects beyond the border the major<br />
part of mankind will <strong>com</strong>prehend in 20 years<br />
at the earliest. The fixation of many labels<br />
and magazines on catchy tunes and all these<br />
transparent trends perhaps is understandable<br />
in cause of economic strategies, but it's dissembling<br />
and laughable at the same time, in<br />
which determined manner all these labels and<br />
magazines have destroyed the "real quality"<br />
of music and underground: - THE AVANT-<br />
GARDE.<br />
www.hasharat.co.il
MANES<br />
Outside Of Dogmas<br />
By Jegger<br />
Manes, one of the most outstanding musical<br />
collectives in the world of such heterogeneous<br />
subcultures as metal, industrial, electronics<br />
etc., is back with an extraordinary record<br />
full of different artistic elements. 'How The<br />
World Came To An End' is the title of this<br />
absolutely mind-blowing new album which<br />
does not fit any musical category or genre.<br />
There is a special reason why the members of<br />
Manes can be called audio scientists or why<br />
their music can be called art. But what is<br />
Manes? That’s obviously a question which<br />
cannot be answered at all. But we can try to<br />
get a little bit closer to these guys by asking<br />
them a few questions. So let’s dip into their<br />
musical and artistic understanding of "omni<br />
directional deconstruction”/destruction by<br />
talking to Manes members Cern and Torstein:<br />
First of all, how would you describe the<br />
style of music Manes is playing at the<br />
moment?<br />
cern: varied audio, outside of most genres<br />
and dogmas<br />
Torstein: We've never really had a need to<br />
define our music in any easy way, and at<br />
least not find a crowded genrebooth to rot in.<br />
It's fun to read what other choose to call our<br />
music (and some people certainly should be<br />
awarded medals for their creative tags), but<br />
we prefer to let the music talk for itself when<br />
it <strong>com</strong>es to defining what it is, if anything at<br />
all. One of the worst ones is Rock/Pop, so<br />
let's go with that...<br />
Would you say, all the musical elements,<br />
you integrated into your sound were part<br />
of a master plan to escape from all the<br />
stereotypes, dogmas and rules, which<br />
are included, when a band in general is<br />
playing traditional metal or especially<br />
Black <strong>Metal</strong> or was the reason for your<br />
musical diversity something like a natural<br />
development in praxis to be<strong>com</strong>e an<br />
artist (in your meaning of being an audio-scientist?)<br />
on a different level of<br />
musical expression?<br />
cern: not really. it was mainly "wow, this and<br />
that idea is cool, let's use it on the album”.<br />
but, our attitudes and inspirations are extremely<br />
varied and different, and when we<br />
join forces to make something more proper<br />
than just ideas and themes, we all have too<br />
many ideas, and we have to juggle everything,<br />
mix, mash, cook, stew, until we all say<br />
"yes!”.<br />
60<br />
Torstein: We haven't had any voiced grand<br />
plan to avoid stereotypes, no, but it's a part<br />
of what Manes is about and who we are. We<br />
don't measure what we do up against other<br />
bands, we just do what we do. We don't try<br />
to be untraditional, because the traditional<br />
isn't a part of our equation when we make<br />
music. We have no such goals.<br />
Could you please try to recapitulate your<br />
steps and phases of musical progression<br />
from the beginning of your career until<br />
now and is there a special reason why<br />
you started out as a band with a blackmetal<br />
background in the 1990ies?<br />
cern: oh shit... manes started in '92 as a side<br />
project. I was playing in atrox back then, but<br />
wanted to do something a bit darker and<br />
more intense, so I formed manes. first as a<br />
one-man band/project, but shortly after<br />
joined by sargatanas (from perifa). the two of<br />
us did three demos, the debut album in '98?,<br />
and some demo-re-releases. the current incarnation<br />
has been going with only minor<br />
modifications to the core-setup since 2000 or<br />
something.<br />
What do you think could be the reasons,<br />
why people call you a progressive or<br />
avantgardistic band?<br />
cern: it probably has something to do with<br />
the current, extreme narrow-minded-ness.<br />
thou shalt not do something anybody might<br />
dislike, play it safe.. which is exactly the opposite<br />
of our main interests and motivation?<br />
Torstein: The safe and well-documented<br />
route is more often than not the path to<br />
<strong>com</strong>mercial success, so many bands seem to<br />
find this the smart way to go to achieve their<br />
ambitions. Money and fame. We actually try<br />
to focus on the music, and that may certainly
qualify for a quick avantgarde label, wouldn't<br />
you agree?<br />
Let’s talk about your last record 'How<br />
The World Came To An End'. What is the<br />
lyrical concept behind this album or the<br />
songs and what are the lyrical differences<br />
to your other former records Under<br />
Ein Blodraud Maane (1999) Vilosophe<br />
(2003) and [view] (2006)?<br />
cern: the first album were quite traditional,<br />
lyric-wise, mostly in Norwegian, one in English,<br />
topics like suicide, death of everything,<br />
desolation. vilosophe became more philosophical<br />
and mental, more varied topics. how<br />
the world is a bit more focused, perhaps a<br />
mixture of both, darkness, suicide, fear, but<br />
in a metaphorical and abstract wrapping.<br />
Torstein: Negativity and nihilism is something<br />
that can be found as the essence in most of<br />
Manes' lyrics. As Cern points out, the first<br />
album might have had a more direct expression,<br />
but it's not like it's miles away from<br />
what we write about today. I guess we could<br />
say it's drawn down to a more personal level<br />
now.<br />
What are the different styles of music,<br />
you where operating and playing with<br />
while recording your last record and<br />
which types of music are included into<br />
the current sound of Manes to get your<br />
own style when you think about 'How<br />
The World Came To An End'?<br />
cern: we incorporate the elements we like,<br />
and don't think too much about what other<br />
styles having this or that as more <strong>com</strong>mon<br />
elements. there is no sign saying "never do<br />
this” or "always do this” around here.<br />
Torstein: We don't go looking for genres to<br />
<strong>com</strong>bine or foreign elements to incorporate,<br />
we just let things flow free as much as possible.<br />
Nor do we include any special types of<br />
music into anything. It's just one type.<br />
Three words and your own construction:<br />
avant-gardism – post-modern – progression<br />
– ‘omni directional deconstruction’.<br />
How could they fit into your – in my<br />
opinion – open understanding of music?<br />
61<br />
cern: let loose your imagination, drop all<br />
imagined rules and dogmas, do your thing,<br />
and people start to call you things like that.<br />
Torstein: Tags like that is not relevant nor<br />
interesting for us. We don't strive to be progressive<br />
or avantgarde, it's more of a drive to<br />
do something that excites us and keeps our<br />
enthusiasm fuelled. Omni directional indeed,<br />
but maybe more destruction than deconstruction.<br />
Would you say, your music is art, or is<br />
this a label, Manes does not want to get<br />
in contact like a lot of other bands in the<br />
metal and rock genres?<br />
cern: yeah, I feel manes is more 'art' than<br />
band. things like that have a tendency to<br />
sound very arrogant and stuff, but that's not<br />
our intention. we want to express something,<br />
our own things, not <strong>com</strong>pete with anybody on<br />
some others terms. the 'art' word is a bit<br />
biased, but I think it kind of fit.<br />
In an interview with another webzine<br />
called ‘voices from the dark side’ I’ve<br />
read that Manes have no singular concept<br />
and that you describe your band<br />
more like a hydra which is an interesting<br />
picture to describe the inner structure of<br />
a band. What was the idea behind this<br />
metaphoric statement?<br />
cern: hm, who said that? Torstein probably...<br />
anyway, interesting analogy. interviews tent<br />
to be very there-and-then, spur of the moment,<br />
etc, so things get said without thinking<br />
too much, etc, but...<br />
Torstein: That might have been my statement<br />
yeah, and it's true. We are very different<br />
people involved in Manes. We have different<br />
tastes in music, we have different<br />
views on recording and concerts ... quite a lot,<br />
really. But our <strong>com</strong>mon ground is Manes. We<br />
have a chemistry that boils down to our output,<br />
be it as albums or gigs or anything. We<br />
focus on what we think is cool to do as Manes,<br />
and open up for what we all think is good shit.
Is your band more something like a collective<br />
of many artists with a democratic<br />
approach or are there special members<br />
in the band, who could be called musical<br />
dictators and art directors?<br />
cern: so far, I’ve been handling most of the<br />
underlying electronics, and perhaps some of<br />
the main structures, but when it <strong>com</strong>es to<br />
actually transform those loose, sporadic and<br />
meaningless ideas into 'proper' music, we are<br />
all on equal standing. not really democratic or<br />
anything, but nobody is more 'important'<br />
than anybody else.<br />
Would you say, that there is a progressive<br />
scene with rock and metal growing<br />
in Norway at the moment (I’m thinking<br />
of bands like Extol, Red Harvest, maybe<br />
Gåte, Thorns, Ulver, etc. by the way) in<br />
which musical diversity is in the foreground<br />
or is your country still the land of<br />
Black <strong>Metal</strong>?<br />
cern: for such a small (and Christian!) country,<br />
Norway has a bunch of interesting bands.<br />
perhaps people up here are more split in<br />
opinion, and dare to do their own things,<br />
perhaps belonging to this or that clique isn't<br />
too important here? don't know.<br />
Torstein: Norway hasn't been the land of<br />
black metal for a long time now. We may still<br />
have a few really good black metal bands<br />
here, but it's not very visible. Well, unless<br />
you count bands like Dimmu Borgir and Satyricon<br />
as black metal (which I don't). Anyway,<br />
as some people seem to forget, diversity<br />
was a major part of the Norwegian black<br />
metal boom in the early 90ies too. I can<br />
mention Emperor, Mayhem and Darkthrone<br />
as examples. None of their defining moments<br />
sounded very similar in expression. They may<br />
have had lyrics dealing with somewhat the<br />
62<br />
same subject matter, but all three of them<br />
had a sound of their own. Anyway, we have<br />
as much diversity here as most places, I<br />
guess, with some hip-hop, jazz, prog, metal,<br />
pop, country etc.<br />
Is it hard for you as an innovative band<br />
with a metal background to be accepted<br />
in the different parts of the music press?<br />
cern: yes and no. we haven't worked too<br />
hard with expanding anything, so there hasn't<br />
been any lack of response, he, but, as<br />
both our history and our label candlelight is<br />
safely anchored to metal, I guess we'll be<br />
'stuck' here forever...<br />
don't know, don't care too<br />
much.<br />
Torstein: Acceptance isn't<br />
something we care too<br />
much about. We see a few<br />
reviews <strong>com</strong>ing in from<br />
magazines of various<br />
shapes and sizes, but for<br />
me personally it gets a bit<br />
abstract and hard to view<br />
as anything besides just<br />
reviews. I don't know<br />
what we're considered to<br />
be, as some sort of general<br />
stance... nor do I<br />
know if "How the world<br />
came to an end" is generally<br />
viewed as a successful<br />
album, a flop, a statement,<br />
a piece of art or total sell-out, true or untrue<br />
or what the fuck else. We have moved on.<br />
Are there any future plans?<br />
cern: a lot! remixes are a-<strong>com</strong>ing, there will<br />
be a remix <strong>com</strong>po coupled with some software<br />
endorsements, some internet projects,<br />
expand into different ways of expression (not<br />
just audio), even more cooperation and collaborations<br />
Torstein: Yes, we're working on a lot of new<br />
stuff already. We are well underway with the<br />
pre-production of our next album tentatively<br />
titled "Be all / End all", and slowly also starting<br />
to see the outlines of some other smaller<br />
releases/projects too. We'll probably do a few<br />
gigs here and there as time goes too, we'll<br />
see what happens. Hopefully, our brand new<br />
website at www.manes.no will be done this<br />
year, but you can check at<br />
www.myspace.<strong>com</strong>/manes to get news and<br />
updates.<br />
Thanks for your time and space.
SATANOCHIO<br />
<strong>Metal</strong> Threat Anonymous<br />
By Suleiman<br />
The Satanochio management and the band<br />
were kind enough to promptly provide detailed<br />
answers to all my queries. Here then,<br />
in all its madness (mostly uncorrected from<br />
the original transcript) are words and ideas of<br />
a metal killing machine. The interview was<br />
conducted via email with Satanochio (vocals /<br />
guitar).<br />
First of all kudos and congrats for producing<br />
one of the finest slabs of innovative<br />
black / death metal in recent years<br />
with I am Satanochio.<br />
Hello and thank you so much man, we really<br />
appreciate your words. It’s nice to meet<br />
open-mind metalheads, hehe!<br />
Kindly elaborate on your pre-Satanochio<br />
musical backgrounds? What bands were<br />
you in before forming this insane outfit?<br />
Before Satanochio we were playing in different<br />
bands, all metal-related...but, unfortunately<br />
I cannot mention their names. Nobody<br />
knows who we really are, and believe me,<br />
this is our philosophy and I don’t wanna<br />
change that. So, before Satanochio each one<br />
of us was trying to make something with his<br />
band...but none of us succeeded very much.<br />
We had all kind of usual guys around us, with<br />
usual ideas, playing and <strong>com</strong>posing usual riffs<br />
and we didn't like that way. We had enough<br />
of "usual", "traditional" and everything that<br />
can be considered "good" by usual people.<br />
63<br />
We wanted something else, something different,<br />
we wanted to search beyond the traditional<br />
metal, and even we are talking about<br />
heavy metal, black metal or death/grind<br />
metal. That's the way I did Satanochio, to<br />
make the music that I want to hear, not to<br />
copy some "great satanic true black metal"<br />
band. We are all listening to all kinds of metal,<br />
we have all the most honest respect possible<br />
for the traditional metal, but we are all very<br />
interested in making something fresh.<br />
How did Satanochio form? Where did<br />
you guys meet up?<br />
At the beginning was just me and Satan Imparat,<br />
a strange guy that I knew from my<br />
childhood. Together we wanted to build the<br />
sickest metal band from Romania. We had<br />
some rehearsals in late 2004, and in January<br />
2005 we recorded the crazy tracks for "The<br />
First Strike Of The Possessed", that was released<br />
in march, same year. After a short<br />
Satan Imparat fell into a deep depression and<br />
some severe mental problems and he left the<br />
band. In May I think I had a jam with one of<br />
my best and old friends, Grui Sanger. After<br />
that rehearsal I knew that he is the right man<br />
for this band and from that day he remained<br />
the second guitar and bass player in Satanochio.<br />
He is the best guitarist I know from<br />
these lands and he has also some great vocal<br />
touch (he recorded the backing vocals for "I<br />
Am Satanochio" album), also he has a unique<br />
style to <strong>com</strong>pose drums (he programmed<br />
shot by shot all the drums for the "Daemon"<br />
maxi single, the "I Am Satanochio" album<br />
and the "Heihaiheihei Caini" single).<br />
In spring of 2007 we found this guy, Nimenea,<br />
a great drummer from our town, and had a<br />
rehearsal with him. Like Grui he remains in<br />
the band as our drummer. So I can say for<br />
the first time that now Satanochio has the<br />
perfect line-up...and with this line-up we<br />
recorded the new material called "Vagrant<br />
Matter Heritage". So, after all these stories,<br />
we are all good friend, we are like a big great<br />
family, surrounded by devoted friends. This is<br />
what we are, haha!<br />
What inspired the relentless and quite<br />
brutal nature of the music?<br />
When you ask me about inspiration for brutality,<br />
the first thing that <strong>com</strong>es through my<br />
mind is Romania, with all the problems and<br />
middle age mentalities from here. Let me tell<br />
you a short story: yesterday I did a great<br />
mistake. Something that I really don't do<br />
usually...I watched TV for 15 minutes. I think<br />
that last time I did something like that was 2-<br />
3 months ago. Yes, I watched TV and I remained<br />
shocked when I saw what was on the<br />
main news. A bunch of big farmers that demonstrated<br />
in the front of the residential yard
of the Agriculture Ministry, dropping milk<br />
over a small mountain of animal fecals...I<br />
don't judge their acts, I just think about the<br />
simple image of them doing this, with that<br />
horrible faces, that toothless large smiles,<br />
and about the reason that makes them acting<br />
in this way. For me this is like a sick piece of<br />
brutal middle age, and it gives me the total<br />
inspiration for making a track like "You Deserve<br />
To Die!" or "The National John Doe". I<br />
cannot take this anymore, I just can't! This<br />
madness must stop and the only weapon I<br />
have to fight with is my music. I cannot stay<br />
back home and leave all the bastards throwing<br />
their lies over the poor mindless crowds!<br />
We are not free. Look around...just look very<br />
carefully around and see how many of us are<br />
the slaves of some stupid philosophy. I cannot<br />
take anymore a generation of whores<br />
that teach their daughters to act<br />
like whores; I cannot take anymore<br />
generations and generations of<br />
religion-related minds and acts! If<br />
I'll stop doing this, there will be no<br />
difference between me and a sheep.<br />
And I'm not a sheep, I am a human<br />
being that can think, that can<br />
dream that can grow and evolve,<br />
that can explore everything, that<br />
can do everything!<br />
In your opinion, what separates<br />
Satanochio from the current<br />
hordes of extreme metal?<br />
I don't know for sure, because I'm<br />
too much into this...the guitar<br />
playing mode, the notes, vocals,<br />
sound, message, lyrics, production,<br />
64<br />
drums <strong>com</strong>position, <strong>com</strong>bination of<br />
styles...everything, I guess?<br />
There is an undercurrent of humor in the<br />
songs and the imagery, that makes it<br />
fresh <strong>com</strong>pared to a lot of so called kvlt<br />
bands. How did this <strong>com</strong>e about? Will<br />
this bloom further in the future?<br />
Yes, I must admit, we had a strong cynic<br />
humor in our lyrics. I don't know, this just<br />
came out naturally, I guess... It's just the<br />
reflection of this world. It's like a mirror that<br />
reflects macabre jokes... everything that we<br />
hate we consider as a brutal joke. Church,<br />
State, Democracy, Freedom … big words,<br />
small inventors with big bank accounts and<br />
big powers. When you want to build something<br />
serious, when you are thinking about<br />
the human progress and evolution, the mindless<br />
crowds are the last people that will admit<br />
you as someone serious. And it's more than<br />
possible that they will admit this only when<br />
they will feel a benefit <strong>com</strong>ing in their lives<br />
based on your work. Only then...maybe.<br />
This has to be asked. Why the masks?<br />
The masks are very important for our message.<br />
It's not about Satanochio the masked<br />
guys that make strange metal music. Satanochio<br />
represents the revolted human, we are<br />
just a metaphor, our real faces are not important<br />
in this story. The revolted human is<br />
also intelligent, that's the way he is revolting<br />
with a mirror over his face. He is cynic, ironic,<br />
considered evil by default of the herd of<br />
sheep. His only chance to find his freedom is<br />
to use this mask. It's the only way that he<br />
can make the words of revolution audible.<br />
Otherwise the eyes of the crowds will never<br />
fall over him...otherwise he will remain always<br />
just someone in the crowd.
How do the song structures <strong>com</strong>e about?<br />
Is it a main <strong>com</strong>poser led effort, done in<br />
layers or a result of jamming?<br />
Yes, I usually <strong>com</strong>pose the basic song, but<br />
after that I work on it with Nimenea and Grui<br />
Sanger and it just happens...a new song is<br />
done only when every Satanochio member is<br />
150% satisfied with it. This is our way.<br />
Do you play live often? If so, do you plan<br />
to expand the line-up to re-produce the<br />
density of sound onstage?<br />
We have never played live. Even<br />
though we had a lot of offers for<br />
this we didn't accept. In the future,<br />
maybe this will change.<br />
Anyway, for the moment we are<br />
just working on our stage looking<br />
effects, and this will take a while.<br />
You know, I cannot imagine Satanochio<br />
playing live as a usual<br />
metal band, because we are not.<br />
We want to offer to the fans a<br />
great show, with a great scenoraphy,<br />
something never seen before.<br />
But for this we will need some<br />
serious time.<br />
Why has there been a switching<br />
of record labels between<br />
your releases?<br />
The first time when we switched the record<br />
label was this year, in January, when I and<br />
Grui wanted to auto produce our "Heihaihei-<br />
65<br />
hei Caini" single. It was for the first time<br />
when Axa Valaha Productions was not into<br />
our stuff, because we wanted to see how we<br />
can manage our things using other methods.<br />
In August Twilight13media became our new<br />
official label and that way was released our<br />
"Dark Visions From the Fog" DVD. For "Vagrant<br />
Matter Heritage" we found another<br />
label interested in our stuff, so the new E.P.<br />
is a co-release of these 2 labels, Twilight13media<br />
and Krudd Promotion & Booking.<br />
I guess these new arrangements will remain<br />
for a long time, because we are all good<br />
friends.<br />
What sort of progression can be expected<br />
on the new EP Vagrant Matter<br />
Heritage?<br />
Vagrant Matter Heritage is a conceptual E.P.<br />
based on the symbol and connotations of<br />
number III. It's the first material recorded in<br />
our new line-up. These are the first tracks<br />
<strong>com</strong>posed at the rehearsal room with our<br />
new drummer. The sound is much better, the<br />
lyrics have more substance, the insanity is<br />
stronger, the <strong>com</strong>positions are better...Vagrant<br />
Matter Heritage is our heritage<br />
to the world, is the summary of our lives,<br />
beliefs and experiences. It's the best material<br />
we ever did and it is showing the actual Satanochio:<br />
stable and certain on its way.<br />
When can the next full-length album be<br />
expected?<br />
Next album...in 2008 for sure! It will be<br />
something much more beyond, I can assure<br />
you! Hahaha!<br />
Are there any other (musical)<br />
projects by the members<br />
that we should know<br />
about?<br />
Yes, Grui has his own bandproject<br />
that is called Grui<br />
Sanger. You can check it at<br />
www.myspace.<strong>com</strong>/gruisange<br />
rband.<br />
It's really fantastic what Grui<br />
works there! He has a unique<br />
story behind his concept and<br />
he is working on a fantastic<br />
record! He also had another<br />
brutal project called Hang Him.<br />
Really, just listen to the <strong>com</strong>positions<br />
of this guy, how he<br />
plays the riffs and how he<br />
<strong>com</strong>poses his drums; really, I<br />
am a fan!<br />
What's the metal scene in Romania like,<br />
and are there others pushing the<br />
boundaries like you?
I just saw a few good bands here, maybe<br />
because the crowds here are more traditional<br />
bands unfortunately. If they are not traditional,<br />
they are based on a very clear style<br />
for sure (death metal, heavy metal, metalcore,<br />
etc). I really don't know a real boundaries-pushing-metal-band<br />
from Romania. We<br />
had all kind of problems caused by our style<br />
and image over here, where a big part of fans<br />
respect only the traditional values of metal.<br />
Even if it was very hard for us, we understand<br />
also that it was very hard for them to<br />
accept an unusual band like Satanochio in a<br />
country where a tribute band has a bigger<br />
value than one based on it's original<br />
stuff...but I saw that in the last period we<br />
didn't have problems like before, so I think<br />
that maybe people begin to accept us in a<br />
way or another. Though this aspect is actually<br />
good, we want to be satisfied first by our<br />
records. I really don't care if the entire country<br />
hates me or loves me; all I care about is<br />
my passion and its results. Now, when the<br />
number of fans is growing day by day, I'm<br />
glad too see people feeding their souls with<br />
our works!<br />
66<br />
Last but not least, who is the hacker who<br />
spread the disinformation about the Satanochio's<br />
breaking up and made it seem<br />
like your official website?<br />
A bastard and a full...what can I say? This<br />
story shows very clear how the low-minds<br />
over here can act sometimes, how some guys<br />
dedicate their abilities only to the destruction<br />
of creation. I really don't care about that<br />
website; we have a new one, much bigger<br />
and more beautiful. I care just about the<br />
work of a man that was destroyed by another<br />
man only for pleasure.<br />
What makes me very sad about all this shitstory<br />
is that I heard this guy is from another<br />
Romanian band....that is, from my point of<br />
view, a dramatic situation.<br />
Thank you for your time. May you rock<br />
loud and true!!!<br />
Thank you for spending your time asking a<br />
madman about his reality.<br />
All The best!
BERGRAVEN<br />
A Small Chat About Death<br />
By aVoid<br />
Interview performed and translated<br />
by aVoid. OK'd by Pär himself (May<br />
27th 2007)<br />
I have paid my friend and musical colleague<br />
Pär Gustavsson a visit on this<br />
calm Day of the Pentecost, at the warm<br />
end of May. He the sole member of Bergraven,<br />
responsible for the black beast<br />
of an album called "Fördärv" ("Ruin"),<br />
released in late 2004. We are listening to<br />
Leaden's "Monotonous Foghorns of Molesting<br />
Department" spreading its bleak<br />
misanthropy, a suitable frame for the<br />
discussions about his new album, musical<br />
methods and the beyond to <strong>com</strong>e.<br />
The second Bergraven album, Dödsvisioner<br />
("Deathvisions"), was released<br />
in the United States May the<br />
22nd, through HydraHead Records,<br />
and will be released in Europe<br />
through Total Holocaust Records.<br />
How would you describe this new<br />
record? What are your thoughts behind<br />
it?<br />
I would like to describe it as the journey<br />
between dying and being dead, set to<br />
music. The music is based on lyrics<br />
based on the ideas and thoughts I have<br />
about the moment of death. Stories of<br />
near death experiences, and the way<br />
religion looks at death and dying. It's not<br />
easy to make music out of it, but I have<br />
tried. Musically it's quite sombre, but<br />
67<br />
then again, so is death. However, I am<br />
only an observer, these are only my<br />
thoughts, not my opinions. The only selfcriticism<br />
I have is that I maybe shouldn't<br />
have made it as raw as I did, but I suppose<br />
that came natural. It is hard to restrain<br />
yourself when dealing with these<br />
subjects.<br />
So where do you find inspiration for<br />
your creations?<br />
The lyrics <strong>com</strong>e from my own thoughts<br />
and ideas. I often get stuck on certain<br />
subjects very intensively for periods of<br />
time... for example the thought of the<br />
moment of death long enough to write<br />
Dödsvisioner. Bergraven is the part of<br />
me that are these thoughts.<br />
Musically, I'm inspired by my lyrics,<br />
which I always write first. I try to shape<br />
different sounds and atmospheres into<br />
music, even images and sceneries at<br />
lengths, to capture visual feelings. How<br />
does the house of a plague-infested man<br />
sound in G minor? Other's music also<br />
inspire me, of course. The emotions of<br />
Burzum is unavoidable. I listen to a lot of<br />
black metal, but other genres as well.<br />
Sprawling gloomy music in general; Angelo<br />
Badalamenti, Joy Division, The Cure,<br />
Chris Isaak... Musicians who manage<br />
"dealing with feelings" inspire me.<br />
Do you believe in a reality beyond<br />
our senses - before and/or after<br />
death?<br />
Yes, somehow. I cannot - and have no<br />
reason to - rule out that there are energies<br />
beyond our senses. I have no reason<br />
to prove that there are, either.<br />
Death itself is such a thing - people may<br />
claim to have seen and experienced<br />
death, but I haven't in any concrete way.<br />
But I do think many have.<br />
Can it be experienced? How?<br />
If you can reach beyond our senses,<br />
then yes, it can be experienced. A few<br />
can feel certain things other can't, but<br />
I'm not one of them. It would be a<br />
shame if we couldn't contact a spirit<br />
world, if there is one. I haven't tried<br />
though.
What lies beyond the grave, do you<br />
think?<br />
(...a long silence.) I have thought a lot<br />
about it, naturally, but what I believe...<br />
that is a good question. There are many<br />
theories of what happens, but I haven't<br />
died yet, so I don't know. I'm actually<br />
surprised that the suicide statistics aren't<br />
higher, considering how curious people<br />
usually are. I cope with life, with my curiosity<br />
growing bigger and bigger. It is<br />
the biggest mystery of<br />
life, you know... Whether<br />
you end up in heaven,<br />
hell or a big black void.<br />
You can only speculate,<br />
as everyone should. Or<br />
maybe not, it is quite<br />
anguish.<br />
What does the word<br />
Bergraven mean?<br />
Berg means mountain, and raven is, well,<br />
raven, in Swedish as well. A black mountain.<br />
It is a metaphor for all the dark<br />
thoughts that are ventilated more seldom<br />
than other. That black mountain<br />
within me is Bergraven.<br />
Why do you only sing in Swedish?<br />
P. It's how I express myself the best. My<br />
knowledge of the different angles and<br />
interpretations of the other languages I<br />
know is too poor. I sometimes refer to<br />
old Swedish proverbs and such, that<br />
aren't translatable. It's strange that people<br />
don't use their mother tongues more<br />
often, seeing how many bad lyrics there<br />
are. I mean, <strong>com</strong>pare Rob Darken to<br />
Dani Filth. Need I say more?<br />
68<br />
You are the only member of Bergraven.<br />
Is this because a), you want<br />
total control, or b), the lack of appropriate<br />
musicians?<br />
A little of both. I want to have control of<br />
Bergraven of course, but it springs from<br />
the absence of like-minded musicians. I<br />
need musicians who are creative, who<br />
<strong>com</strong>pose and write as much as I do, not<br />
just going along playing what I tell them<br />
to play. And those are hard to <strong>com</strong>e by.<br />
Dödsvisioner was recorded at<br />
the infamous Necromorbus<br />
Studio, with Tore G Stjerna<br />
recording and Perra Karlsson<br />
(from Nominon, In Aeternum,<br />
etc) playing session drums.<br />
How did they affect the final<br />
product, what input did they<br />
have?<br />
Well, we all worked on the arrangements,<br />
how long different parts<br />
should be played and other small details.<br />
Perra and Tore go back a long time, so<br />
there weren't any conflicts as to what<br />
should be done and what shouldn't. We<br />
weren't three individual wills, but worked<br />
together as one <strong>com</strong>bined will. To<br />
have a second opinion from musicians<br />
as experienced as them<br />
means a lot to the process. Will<br />
this or that work? And they of<br />
course brought their own individuality<br />
to it.<br />
How do you think Dödsvisioner<br />
will be received, and<br />
who will listen?<br />
I am sure that many who are into<br />
Black <strong>Metal</strong> will be broadminded<br />
enough to allow my non-Satanism,<br />
deviated harmonies and many<br />
clean guitars. I also hope that a wider<br />
mass can grasp and identify themselves<br />
with the emotions. And hear the screams<br />
and distortions as amplifying the emotions,<br />
not me trying to make angry and<br />
heavy music. I think that music is moving<br />
towards what it was in the 1980's,<br />
with many more accepted genres,<br />
equally popular, as opposed to the late<br />
90's. I make the kind of music I would<br />
like to hear, that I think is missing, and I<br />
hope other thinks it is missing as well.
Do you have any side-projects?<br />
Yes... a lot of them, with or without<br />
names. Infernal Hellfire is a tribute to<br />
the extreme metal of the 80's, mostly to<br />
develope my technicality as a guitarist. I<br />
make a lot of music; my focus isn't only<br />
on Bergraven.<br />
What is then the future for Bergraven?<br />
Will there be live performances?<br />
I have a new album finished, that I hope<br />
to record eventually. It is a natural continuation<br />
of Bergraven. And I have been<br />
trying to put a live line-up together. If<br />
there is a will to realize Bergraven onstage,<br />
then it would be very wel<strong>com</strong>e. I<br />
will continue to think and develop Bergraven;<br />
it isn't a project I will cancel<br />
anytime soon. I make music for myself,<br />
so whether there is any interest from the<br />
outside or not, Bergraven will still exist.<br />
And so, we reach the end of this interview.<br />
A question to conclude;<br />
what are your thoughts and views<br />
on the state of extreme metal today?<br />
I think that the scene is filled with less<br />
inspiration then it was years ago. If<br />
you're into extreme metal it's not just<br />
playing the riffs everyone else has been<br />
doing before, you have to have inspiration<br />
and do something new. Darkthrone<br />
have done their albums and concerning<br />
black metal there is no need for people<br />
trying to sound like them.<br />
69<br />
So you can say that there is a big inflation<br />
going on and that is something I at<br />
least try to change. I think this is something<br />
that has happened since everyone<br />
can record their own record without any<br />
big amounts of money. You don't have to<br />
try very hard and you sell some records,<br />
but you sound like everyone else. Today<br />
Extreme <strong>Metal</strong> has also be<strong>com</strong>e really<br />
big and I don't know actually if I like it or<br />
not, mostly because the biggest band<br />
don't seem to have any inspiration or<br />
energy, in my opinion. I don't see<br />
the ”demo-energy of darkness” that I<br />
find in old records. A band that has been<br />
able to uphold these things is Trelldom.<br />
They just put out a new album that<br />
sounds exactly the same as they<br />
sounded 10 years ago BUT with new<br />
riffage, and amazing vocals. They also<br />
have a very ambient feeling that really<br />
haunts the listeners and not being focused<br />
on sounding too extreme with<br />
double kickdrums clicking your ears out<br />
for example. To get the sound of darkness<br />
there is big need for listening to<br />
other genres and mix it with a good<br />
sense of feeling. I do not mean in the<br />
way Mr. Bungle does it, but more in the<br />
way of Lurker of Chalice. I think that'll<br />
wrap it up for you Andreas, and hope<br />
that you will be able to express your<br />
wants for new sounding extreme metal<br />
in the future.<br />
SOUNDS UNDER THE SURFACE is a superb online magazine written by truly dedicated top<br />
journalists from Germany. Though Thor and Marcel are rooted in the <strong>Metal</strong> scene since many<br />
years, this mag knows no genre borders and features lots of exquisite bands from all directions.<br />
Sounds Under The Surface is published as a free PDF. The second issue is out now, focusing<br />
on "woods, krauts & sprouts”.<br />
This magazine is a must for all lovers of pure and deep music.
KEKAL<br />
The Light At The End Of The Tunnel<br />
By aVoid and Chrystof<br />
Despite having a leading role in their native<br />
scene, producing six albums of highest quality<br />
extreme avantgarde metal in over ten<br />
years, Kekal is still one of South East Asia's<br />
most well-kept secrets, having yet to conquer<br />
the West. Intrigued, aVoid and Chrystof<br />
hunts down mainman Jeff Arwadi, now residing<br />
in Canada, to shed some light on this<br />
obscure Indonesian trio...<br />
A: KEKAL have released six albums over<br />
the last decade. Still you are a tip for<br />
insiders within the metal scene. So<br />
maybe you could start with a brief introduction<br />
of KEKAL to our virgin readers.<br />
How did it all begin? What does the<br />
name Kekal mean?<br />
Well, Kekal has been around for 12 years<br />
now. We just celebrated our 12th anniversary,<br />
silently and quietly. We came from Jakarta,<br />
the capital city of Indonesia, entered the<br />
scene in late 1995 and released our first official<br />
demo tape in 1996 to spread our name<br />
and music locally and regionally, then we<br />
recorded our debut full-length album independently<br />
in 1997 and licensed it to various<br />
labels.. After 2 albums then we got some<br />
exposure within the European underground<br />
scene, first within the Eastern part of Europe,<br />
and then in Germany and BeNeLux after Fear<br />
Dark released our 3rd album, and we continued<br />
to record another album in 2003. We<br />
toured Europe in 2004 as the first Indonesian<br />
69<br />
band that played shows outside Asian territory,<br />
and our 5th album was released in 2005.<br />
We just got our 6th album out few months<br />
ago, called "The Habit of Fire" which is also<br />
our first album who entered the North American<br />
market. So far, we've been known as an<br />
independent band who never wants to get<br />
signed by record label, to maintain our independency<br />
and control over our artistic freedom,<br />
and also to own our recording masters<br />
and copyright. Instead of band signing, we<br />
always prefer to license our finished albums<br />
to record labels. One of the reasons why we<br />
haven't been known that well. As far as our<br />
band name goes, Kekal means ’immortal’<br />
or ’eternal’ in Indonesian language..<br />
A: Over the last five years or so, you<br />
have be<strong>com</strong>e less and less traditional<br />
concerning <strong>com</strong>position and concept.<br />
How has this progression been received<br />
by the press & the audience?<br />
We started to switch into the new direction<br />
when we recorded our 3rd album "The Painful<br />
Experience" in 2001. We lost many of our old<br />
fans back then, especially those who were<br />
into melodic black and death metal. We got<br />
mixed responses; they were either love us or<br />
hate us, nothing in between. But we moved<br />
on and continued to do music like this. However,<br />
since our 4th album "1000 Thoughts of<br />
Violence", people were used to the fact that<br />
Kekal is no longer the band they knew from<br />
our first 2 albums, and we started to gain<br />
new enthusiasts from many different musical<br />
backgrounds.<br />
As for the press, mostly we get very positive<br />
reviews, despite a very few reviews who told<br />
us that we suck because we're not metal<br />
enough in the eyes of these reviewers, but<br />
we always ignore that kind of reviews.<br />
I think if people are open minded enough to<br />
accept different musical styles, then they will<br />
like Kekal. Right now, our enthusiasts and<br />
loyal supporters came from many musical<br />
backgrounds, not only metal but as broad as<br />
jazz-fusion, punk, hip-hop, experimental, and<br />
electronic-dance music backgrounds.
A: Were there any particular circumstances<br />
that made you leave the metal<br />
behind? A growing boredom with the<br />
genre, or just a desire to break free and<br />
find new listeners? When you're stuck<br />
inside the metal genre, I suppose it's<br />
hard to reach outside of it.<br />
We didn’t leave the metal behind. Our decision<br />
was intentionally to break its limits.<br />
<strong>Metal</strong> music was not originally invented with<br />
the vision of creating a tight box with exact<br />
size, let alone to create walls inside the box<br />
called sub-genres. But then when it was established<br />
as a part of the genre and moreover<br />
as a part of rock subcultures, people<br />
then tried to put limits and now it seems that<br />
it can no longer be expandable if we don’t try<br />
to tear down these walls. It happens in electronic<br />
music as well, it happens even in jazz<br />
too. Music styles be<strong>com</strong>e genres and then<br />
genres be<strong>com</strong>es subcultures.<br />
I hope you don’t see music in genres, because<br />
it’s how 95% of people see music<br />
nowadays, and it’s not an avantgarde way of<br />
seeing the music. It’s the MTV and pop culture<br />
way of thinking. That was a part of major<br />
labels and MTV campaign, to create boxes<br />
so they can target the music to the specific<br />
audience and build the number of audience in<br />
each box, because it was a lot easier to control<br />
and manipulate when they were pooled.<br />
What we are tired with is the limits, like all<br />
these tags and sub-genres that people always<br />
associate them to us. Kekal has a unique<br />
position, that if we are being promoted and<br />
marketed only to music fans within one or<br />
two sub-genres, we won’t survive. So what<br />
we do nowadays is to find more and more<br />
new listeners everyday, while continue fighting<br />
to tear down all these limits. It is beyond<br />
boredom. It’s a method of survival.<br />
A: How has the KEKAL sound evolved<br />
throughout these six albums? How much<br />
has been "forced" to reach a set idea,<br />
and how much has <strong>com</strong>e naturally?<br />
Everything <strong>com</strong>es out naturally. We just don't<br />
want to limit ourselves whether in listening to<br />
music as well as writing the music. We listen<br />
to any kind of music, and most of our favourite<br />
musicians and bands nowadays are out-<br />
70<br />
side metal. And since we don't want to limit<br />
ourselves in writing and playing it, these influences<br />
would <strong>com</strong>e naturally when we write<br />
the music. We never want to be<strong>com</strong>e a<br />
unique band. Uniqueness must be genuine,<br />
must <strong>com</strong>e from the heart, otherwise it would<br />
sound fake. Also, our instrumental and song<br />
writing skills have progressed throughout the<br />
years, so right now we are able to write and<br />
play more <strong>com</strong>plex music, in terms of musical<br />
structure and arrangements.<br />
A: Is there any band or artist that has<br />
influenced you more than others<br />
throughout the history of Kekal?<br />
When we just started out until we released<br />
our official demo tape in 1996, I think Bathory<br />
and Iron Maiden influenced us more<br />
than others. But after the guitarist Leo came<br />
in, he brought his influences to the band, and<br />
I started to listen to prog rock and electronic<br />
stuff.<br />
A: You are one of the few bands I have<br />
<strong>com</strong>e across that actually place themselves<br />
in the avantgarde metal genre.<br />
Why is this appropriate tag for KEKAL?<br />
I really don't know. Honestly, while I don't<br />
mind with the term avantgarde metal, but I<br />
think this term should not be used to establish<br />
a sub-genre. I believe these kinds of<br />
bands try to make fresh music by putting<br />
many of their outside metal influences into<br />
their music, with the idea of limitless creativity,<br />
but when another sub-genre has be<strong>com</strong>e<br />
established, it would create nothing but limits,<br />
and I don't think it's wise if we try to establish<br />
sub-genre that limits creativity and expression.<br />
Back in the early 80's, when thrash<br />
and death metal weren't established as subgenres,<br />
I heard many original bands came up<br />
with their own interpretation of what is fast<br />
and brutal music, but during the 90's when<br />
all these stupid sub-genres started to emerge,<br />
we saw more and more bands copying each<br />
other, because there are no space left but<br />
they had to conform to the scene, so they<br />
could not get away from limits.. I believe that<br />
music should not be limited at all when it<br />
<strong>com</strong>es to an artistic expression.<br />
C: Your latest work "The Habit of Fire"<br />
has been released some months ago.<br />
How have the reactions been so far?<br />
It is still hard to tell at this stage, as not<br />
many album reviews from the media showed<br />
up yet, especially in Europe. Perhaps we<br />
aren’t important enough, I just don’t know.<br />
Last album, it needed about 6 months or so<br />
for the review to appear in a printed magazine.<br />
But so far, we've got very positive responses.<br />
Same with the individual responses
from listeners that we've received through email<br />
and myspace. Mostly they told us that<br />
they had to give ”The Habit of Fire” some<br />
more spins before they got hooked by the<br />
music, but once they got hooked by it, they<br />
told us that this is the best Kekal album, or at<br />
least one of the best.<br />
C: For "The Habit of Fire" you also<br />
changed label. Your last 3 outputs have<br />
been released by "Fear Dark Records".<br />
Now you have licensing deals with<br />
"Whirlwind Records" (Germany) and<br />
Open Grave Records (USA). I've heard<br />
you aim to reach people outside the extreme<br />
metal scene with this approach.<br />
Are you still satisfied with this strategy?<br />
I guess you read that from the Fear Dark<br />
website..? Actually, we left Fear Dark because<br />
of various reasons that are one of the<br />
reasons, but not the main thing who made us<br />
to switch label. The licensing deals with 2<br />
record labels came out because it was the<br />
best thing to do, unless the album being licensed<br />
to a bigger label that operates 2 offices<br />
in both USA and Europe, it is better to<br />
have 2 smaller record labels who release the<br />
album to their own separate markets. Our<br />
friends told us that we should release the<br />
album through a U.S. record label too because<br />
there is a growing trend for the kind of<br />
music we do and more and more new listeners<br />
being introduced to it.. So we took their<br />
words seriously, while maintaining the European<br />
market that we already had. Fear Dark<br />
as a record label is very strict to the extreme<br />
metal territory, but Whirlwind Records has<br />
somewhat more diverse as they have nonmetal<br />
bands as well. It is better for us to be<br />
placed into a more diverse field because of<br />
the nature of our music.<br />
A: "The Habit of Fire", is a conceptual<br />
album, dealing with the urbanized modern<br />
world. What are your opinions on the<br />
state of our World?<br />
What we always believe is that human tends<br />
to corrupt. It is in our blood, our hedonistic<br />
human tendencies that control or influence us<br />
to make decisions, but by doing that, the<br />
result is that we are always heading to something<br />
called destruction. I do believe that<br />
what we do is always to gain short-term<br />
benefits. I don't have all the answers to those<br />
problems in the world, but first thing we need<br />
to be aware, that when we make a choice,<br />
the tendency is always been hedonistic rather<br />
than altruistic. It is be<strong>com</strong>ing more and more<br />
<strong>com</strong>plex when these things are done in the<br />
name of security, nation, God, and religion.<br />
People should be aware and critical of this,<br />
otherwise they would be easily being de-<br />
71<br />
ceived by those who have power or who are<br />
in control.<br />
A: If you had the power, how would you<br />
turn this hedonism towards altruism? Is<br />
there any "magical solution", or is it up<br />
to evolution to sort things out?<br />
I would say that better to leave the“if I had<br />
the power” words to all those politicians who<br />
are running their campaigns. I will keep continue<br />
making music. I mean there are different<br />
ways to create awareness to all these<br />
wrongs that happen in our world. Michael<br />
Moore’s documentary movies are good example<br />
of creating awareness, and they get<br />
huge impact on the society, but he’s not a<br />
politician himself, well at least for now. He is<br />
doing that in capability as a documentary<br />
filmmaker. But I must add that creating<br />
awareness doesn't always have to be connected<br />
with the politics within human group<br />
interactions such as in governmental, corporate<br />
or religious institutions. Awareness to<br />
oneself is also included.<br />
A: Faith and Religion is always a hot<br />
topic when dealing with underground<br />
music. Considering your previous affiliation<br />
with so-called "white" metal bands<br />
on tours and splits (Crimson Moonlight,<br />
Slechtvalk, etc), what importance does<br />
faith have for Kekal as a band? I'm not<br />
trying to stigmatize you as a religious<br />
band, I'm just interested.<br />
For me personally, faith is something that<br />
motivates and drives you to live the life as<br />
human being. People might have a faith in<br />
oneself, as well as faith in God or higher<br />
power, or might have faith in many other<br />
things from an amulet to a broken tooth. As a<br />
musician, it is important to maintain drive,
and faith helps creating the drive needed to<br />
write music, especially if the music acts as<br />
the songwriter’s medium of expression. I<br />
happen to believe in something good, that’s<br />
why I am always looking for better life and<br />
try to improve health, for example. But it<br />
does not have to be associated with religion<br />
whatsoever. You don’t have to be religious to<br />
ever believe that there is light at the end of<br />
the tunnel, and you don’t have to be religious<br />
to have a good diet and workout some exercise.<br />
A: Since you started in the mid-90´s,<br />
how has the Indonesian metal scene<br />
evolved? How socially accepted is it today<br />
to play extreme metal in Indonesia?<br />
When we started out, the scene was in its<br />
early stage as not so many bands back then<br />
who had their own songs and released demo<br />
tapes. Most of the bands were still playing<br />
covers of well-known metal bands. But it has<br />
progressed and improved both in quantity<br />
and in quality. As long as whether it's socially<br />
accepted, I don't think the scene ever encountered<br />
something like a brick wall. <strong>Metal</strong><br />
has always been underground over there,<br />
and it hasn't been known enough in the<br />
mainstream market and mainstream music<br />
industry, but I think in Indonesia, there are<br />
more independent channels for metal bands<br />
to be<strong>com</strong>e more and more known to the<br />
masses.. I'm speaking about quantity, because<br />
there are TV shows that accept videos<br />
from independent bands, including metal<br />
bands, and also there are bigger music festivals<br />
which metal bands can share the stage<br />
with mainstream pop bands too.<br />
A: Are there any certain Indonesian<br />
bands you can re<strong>com</strong>mend?<br />
It is hard because I don’t listen much to Indonesian<br />
bands nowadays. But I would re<strong>com</strong>mend<br />
a band called Cranial Incisored. I<br />
helped mixed and mastered their new promo<br />
CD, so in this case, I am familiar with their<br />
music. They are one of few bands in Indonesia<br />
who are trying to blend music styles alto-<br />
72<br />
gether.<br />
A: How does a Kekal song <strong>com</strong>e to life?<br />
Who does what (especially now when<br />
the Pacific Ocean is in the middle of the<br />
band)?<br />
”The Habit of Fire” is already recorded before<br />
I came to Canada, so there was no ocean<br />
between us, only concrete walls and flooded<br />
streets. But for the future material, we haven’t<br />
talked about how we deal with our current<br />
situation yet. Let’s see what will happen.<br />
But Kekal will continue no matter what the<br />
situation is.<br />
A: Both you and Azhar are vocalists. Who<br />
is responsible for the clean vocals and<br />
the screams respectively?<br />
We didn’t split our vocal jobs specifically<br />
based on which type of vocals. Most of the<br />
clean vocals are sung by me, but that’s not<br />
because I’m the one who responsible to handle<br />
the entire clean vocal department. It just<br />
happens.<br />
A: Why have you chosen to use programmed<br />
drums (expect on Acidity); for<br />
practical reasons - everyone in a band<br />
know how frustrating drummers can be,<br />
especially when recording - or aesthetic?<br />
Actually not all drums are programmed.<br />
Since ”The Painful Experience” album, used<br />
real-time human performance and <strong>com</strong>bined<br />
it with the mathematically-programmed ones<br />
while doing the editing on the real-time part..<br />
The real-time performances were done with<br />
MIDI drum pads. And other than that, we<br />
also put electronic beats and loops. Because<br />
of the current technology of music production,<br />
which in many cases producers use triggered<br />
drums and manipulate the performance data<br />
as well as the sound in the studio, there are<br />
no separation between what is real and what<br />
is programmed.. They are blended together,<br />
so if you asked me if Kekal drums are programmed,<br />
I would say not really. I call our<br />
approach of drum production as "hybrid<br />
drums". It’s a mix between human performance<br />
and matrix editing, and all was done by<br />
the help of the sophisticated digital technology.<br />
C: You've moved from Indonesia to Canada<br />
one year ago. What have been the<br />
reasons for this big step? Did you already<br />
adapt yourself to your new environment?<br />
How do you like Canada so<br />
far?<br />
Well, the reasons are personal, both for me<br />
and my wife, since she also came with me to<br />
Canada, and it’s nothing to do with Kekal
actually. I can adapt myself quite fast here<br />
for the culture and such, maybe weather was<br />
the hardest part since I never experienced as<br />
cold temperature in Canada as in Indonesia.<br />
There is no winter in Indonesia, and winter in<br />
Canada is quite extreme. I like Canada for<br />
being more open in any aspect of civilization,<br />
<strong>com</strong>pared with my home country. It’s healthier<br />
for me to be at the more open environment.<br />
A: How do you think<br />
moving to Canada<br />
will affect your<br />
creativity?<br />
I don’t think it will<br />
affect creativity in<br />
terms of the quality of<br />
my song writing, because<br />
that depends<br />
more on motivation,<br />
drive and will. Maybe<br />
the emotion would be<br />
different, I’m a bit<br />
more calm and laid back right now, and that<br />
would definitely give something different to<br />
Kekal’s music in the future.. I’m not as angry<br />
and uneasy as when I did ”The Painful Experience”<br />
or ”1000 Thoughts of Violence”, for<br />
example.<br />
C: You've been one of the very first<br />
Asian metal bands touring through<br />
Europe in 2004. I guess this has been a<br />
great experience for you. Can<br />
you tell us more about it? Has it<br />
been the first time you left Indonesia?<br />
Did this tour influence<br />
your decision to move away<br />
from Indonesia?<br />
No. This tour didn’t influence anything<br />
about my personal decision in life.. It<br />
did help to test and get used a bit on the<br />
winter, because when we were in Sweden it<br />
was about minus 6 or minus 7 degree Celsius.<br />
When I came to Canada, I was already prepared<br />
for the minus 20 degree something.<br />
The tour was great, and because we didn’t<br />
have very tight dates, it was about half doing<br />
job and half having a holiday. It wasn’t the<br />
first time I was travelling outside Indonesia<br />
or South East Asian region, I was in Australia<br />
before, and lived there for about a month.<br />
A: Being Swedish, I'm curious... What<br />
was the response from the crowd when<br />
you played in Linköping?<br />
It was very good overall. The response from<br />
the crowd was great, one of the best crowd<br />
responses we got on the whole tour. There<br />
was a little problem, but we already anticipated<br />
to that kind of thing which would pos-<br />
73<br />
sibly happen to us, we weren’t surprised<br />
when it did happen.<br />
A: Will you do live shows again? Your<br />
songs seem to be<strong>com</strong>e increasingly<br />
harder to perform on stage.<br />
I wish. It’s too early to say yes or no as it all<br />
depends on the situations. The truth is that<br />
we are unable to do shows to support ”The<br />
Habit of Fire” at least for a year, as I am the<br />
only member who’s in Canada and the others<br />
are in Indonesia, but who knows in next couple<br />
years.<br />
C: Okay, Jeff, now we finally <strong>com</strong>e to the<br />
last question. What will the future bring<br />
for KEKAL? What are your current plans?<br />
In what direction do you think your further<br />
work will evolve?<br />
Right now I’m working on the remix of some<br />
Kekal songs. I can’t really go into details at<br />
this moment as things haven’t been finalized<br />
yet, but we will post the updates on our forum<br />
as well as our myspace blog once everything<br />
is done. We do also have some plans<br />
for the next year, but once again they are<br />
still at the early stages and things might be<br />
changed, so I don’t want to speculate for<br />
right now. However, Kekal will stay and keep<br />
moving forward in the current path, that<br />
means that we will continue to progress<br />
within this direction, in which evolution is a<br />
part of the progression.<br />
C: Thank you a lot! Any last words?<br />
Thanks a lot aVoid and Chrystof for this interview.We<br />
appreciate that. To anyone who<br />
might not familiar with Kekal, feel free to visit<br />
our myspace page www.myspace.<strong>com</strong>/kekal<br />
to check out our songs online as well as getting<br />
the information on where and how to<br />
obtain our new album ”The Habit of Fire”, as<br />
well as our previous albums. And you are<br />
more than wel<strong>com</strong>e to leave a <strong>com</strong>ment or<br />
send us a message. Cheers!
THE AMENTA<br />
A Virus For Dissidents<br />
By Jegger<br />
What would Oswald Spengler do if he was<br />
born in our times? Would he dig himself deep<br />
into historical books to search evidence for<br />
the decline of the western culture? Maybe.<br />
But maybe he would also go to Australia and<br />
form a band like THE AMENTA. Extreme music,<br />
alien outfits, monumental futuristic artwork<br />
and a dissi-dental philosophy (means<br />
dissidents with sharp denture)<br />
– this is THE AMENTA.<br />
Jegger, at the moment on<br />
holidays in Sicily, sends us<br />
this Interview with keyboarder<br />
Chlordane – enjoy!<br />
In the world of metal<br />
music The Amenta is<br />
known as a dark extreme<br />
metal band. Could you<br />
please describe the style<br />
of The Amenta to our<br />
readers?<br />
Chlordane: We consider<br />
ourselves to be Extreme<br />
Music. We have never considered<br />
ourselves a Death<br />
<strong>Metal</strong>, Black <strong>Metal</strong> or Industrial<br />
<strong>Metal</strong> band, though<br />
people do try to classify us<br />
as such. Our music is the<br />
result of experimentation<br />
and trial and error. We have<br />
never sat down to write a death metal song<br />
or black metal song, we try to create MUSIC.<br />
I don’t think that a band should be classifying<br />
itself. It is way too fucking limiting. When you<br />
have classified yourself as a "Black <strong>Metal</strong>”<br />
band before you have even started writing<br />
then you are setting yourself limitations. The<br />
Amenta has no limitations. We make music<br />
that pushes the boundaries of music, therefore<br />
it is Extreme. The only words that I feel<br />
<strong>com</strong>fortable using to describe The Amenta is<br />
extreme, un<strong>com</strong>promising, ugly and dark.<br />
Any other classifications or adjectives are<br />
irrelevant and irritating.<br />
Are there any bands, which influenced<br />
you musically and are there any special<br />
music-styles, which are important for<br />
The Amenta beside metal?<br />
Chlordane: We try not to be influenced directly<br />
by other bands. I think the best way to<br />
approach music is to listen to as much music<br />
as possible, from a variety of sources and<br />
74<br />
genres, take it all in, appreciate it and when<br />
it <strong>com</strong>es time to write a song, lock yourself<br />
away and don’t think about anything other<br />
than what sounds good in the song at the<br />
time. As soon as you start thinking "I want to<br />
sound like this band or that riff” then you<br />
have lost the fucking battle and you might as<br />
well just release a shitty Darkthrone rip off.<br />
If anything inspires us, rather than influences<br />
us, from other bands it would be their experimental<br />
spirit. Musicians those are unafraid<br />
to take huge risks musically. Musicians<br />
that are trying to invent their own musical<br />
language. They are the inspiring<br />
musicians. And it<br />
isn’t my fucking job to point<br />
them out for you. I don’t<br />
care enough to educate people<br />
on what I believe is correct<br />
about music. As far as I<br />
am concerned, if you want to<br />
listen to shit then you get<br />
what you fucking deserve.<br />
As far as listening to other<br />
musical styles other than<br />
metal, of course we do. We<br />
find MUSIC interesting, not<br />
some bullshit false "brotherhood”,<br />
meat headed, close<br />
minded shit. We listen to<br />
pretty much anything and<br />
everything. If it’s interesting<br />
and I haven’t heard it before<br />
then I will listen to it no<br />
matter what genre it springs<br />
from.<br />
Does The Amenta accept<br />
any musical boundaries?<br />
Chlordane: Of course not. As I mentioned<br />
previously, to accept boundaries is to lose the<br />
battle before you have started. We are musicians.<br />
We can do what ever the fuck we want<br />
to express ourselves. As listeners you have<br />
the right and opportunity to decide if you<br />
want to listen to it or not, but either way it<br />
will not change how we create and appreciate<br />
music. I like to think that anything is possible<br />
for us. When we create music we are trying<br />
to keep ourselves excited, and it isn’t exciting<br />
to create music with restrictions because you<br />
are afraid to take a risk. It is the risks that<br />
create the excitement.<br />
How is the line-up at the moment and do<br />
you play live?<br />
Chlordane: The line up is solid at the moment.<br />
The Amenta has a very strong core and as<br />
long as that core stays solid then The Amenta<br />
will stay strong. We do play live. We are just
about to undertake an Australian tour with<br />
The Berzerker and Akercocke.<br />
Our live shows are fucking stressful and expensive<br />
for us. It takes a lot of technology<br />
and is a logistical nightmare to re-create<br />
what we do on record in a live context. But<br />
according to the reviews, we pull it off. The<br />
new material is going to be even fucking<br />
harder. Not only is it harder to play in the<br />
sense that it isn’t grounded in any "metal”<br />
technique but it is also very layered and intricate.<br />
It will be exciting to bring into a live<br />
situation, I think. But it’s going to cause a<br />
shitload of stress.<br />
Let’s talk about your record Occasus. It’s<br />
one of the most outstanding records in<br />
the heterogeneous subgenre of Industrial-black-death-metal.<br />
Do you feel that<br />
there is a lot of positive feedback <strong>com</strong>ing<br />
back from the metal scene, or do you<br />
have problems with your sound to be<br />
recognized?<br />
Chlordane: Feedback for Occasus has been<br />
great. We got many perfect score reviews in<br />
zines and websites all over the world. There<br />
are always detractors, but that is the nature<br />
of the beast. Perhaps an album shouldn’t<br />
appeal to everyone as that means it is appealing<br />
to the lowest <strong>com</strong>mon denominator in<br />
people. An album should challenge people. I<br />
think Occasus did that. That’s something that<br />
we hope all our releases will do. Of course it<br />
would be nice if everyone bought Occasus<br />
and appreciated it intellectually as it was<br />
meant to be appreciated, but we know that<br />
this is impossible. Not everyone is going to<br />
appreciate a new intellectual idea. And we<br />
are not fucking dumbing down our music to<br />
appeal to idiots.<br />
Is there a difference between the reactions<br />
of your listeners (or if you want:<br />
"fans”) and the music media?<br />
Chlordane: Not really as far as I know. Of<br />
course you would like to think that the music<br />
media is made up of fans but this is not always<br />
true. Everyone was very positive about<br />
the album, I guess the only difference between<br />
the "fans” and the media was that the<br />
media had to express themselves in 300<br />
words of a review where as the listeners usually<br />
have a more visceral reaction.<br />
The production and the song writing of<br />
Occasus are fantastic. Who came up with<br />
this idea to create such a wall of sound<br />
and how do you write songs?<br />
Chlordane: Thank you very much. Our song<br />
writing is something at which we work very<br />
hard. The wall of sound came from our writ-<br />
75<br />
ing techniques and the techniques we used to<br />
record. Our song writing is based in improvisation.<br />
It is very rare that a member will<br />
bring in a riff or part that they have written<br />
at home. Generally our writing sessions involve<br />
brainstorming an idea first, finding an<br />
idea that we find interesting enough to pursue.<br />
Then we might all pick up a guitar or<br />
keyboard or whatever <strong>com</strong>es to hand and<br />
play until something clicks. The idea is then<br />
recorded and we play over it, finding new<br />
chords or rhythms.<br />
I like to think that we have created our own<br />
musical language. We do not write using conventional<br />
harmonies or keys. Our musical<br />
language is based more in the timbre of a<br />
sound. We have got to the point where we<br />
are all able to understand the musical qualities<br />
of noise and this assists us greatly in<br />
making our music.<br />
Would you describe yourself as a democratic<br />
band or are there any members<br />
who play a leader role in The Amenta?<br />
Chlordane: I don’t believe that any successful<br />
band is really a democracy. A democracy<br />
basically means that everyone’s opinion is<br />
given equal weight. Which is great in principal<br />
but it never works out that way, politically<br />
or musically.<br />
Musically, I think it works better to have an<br />
open forum where everyone expresses their<br />
ideas. These can then be discussed and de-
ated but the ultimate decision must be<br />
made by a much smaller group of people,<br />
exactly as it is in a political "democracy”<br />
where politicians are voted into place and<br />
then decide an idea amongst themselves<br />
without consulting the man on the street. We<br />
are very lucky in The Amenta, because we<br />
have a very strong writing and ideas team. It<br />
is this team that makes all the ultimate musical<br />
and artistic decisions for the band.<br />
What is the lyrical concept behind Occasus?<br />
Chlordane: Lyrically, Occasus deals with the<br />
decline of the western world. It is my belief<br />
that consumerism, weak government, advertising,<br />
and religion have made a very weak<br />
western world. Globally the west is the spoilt,<br />
hypochondriac kid at the party. He is weak<br />
and vulgar.<br />
Occasus posits the idea that western humanity<br />
has made its own trap and refuses to free<br />
itself because it is <strong>com</strong>fortable. Western Humanity<br />
allows itself to be led blindly. It<br />
doesn’t have the strength anymore to fight.<br />
It is decaying. We are in endtimes.<br />
Your last album Occasus was re-released<br />
in June 2007 and you’ve opened a discussion<br />
platform called "Virus”, which is<br />
in your words "an antidote to primitive<br />
thinking.” Can you tell us something<br />
about these activities?<br />
Chlordane: Occasus has indeed been rereleased.<br />
It has been issued as a limited edition<br />
CD/DVD pack. It has the full original<br />
album plus our 2002 MCD Mictlan and an<br />
extra new track. The DVD contains the Virus<br />
film cycle, the film clip for the track Erebus,<br />
the first official release of the Soundtrack to<br />
the Hidden Earth, which was an experiment<br />
in sonic texture from 2004. The release<br />
<strong>com</strong>es with all new artwork. We just received<br />
the package two days before I am writing this<br />
and they look fucking amazing.<br />
76<br />
The Virus Discussion platform is an extension<br />
of the Virus film cycle. The idea is that humans,<br />
by nature, think primitively. For example<br />
they will see a symbol and immediately<br />
associated other stimuli and prejudice<br />
with it. They do not think deeper into context<br />
or intent. There is not attempt to understand.<br />
Humanity merely reacts when they should be<br />
sitting back and analysing.<br />
The Virus films aim to show extreme imagery<br />
constantly juxtaposed against its opposite. It<br />
is propaganda without an agenda. The idea is<br />
that people will HAVE to sit back and think<br />
about what it means. The discussion platform<br />
is there for people to discuss, debate and<br />
above all to think beyond surface reactions.<br />
Check it out at virus.theamenta.<strong>com</strong>. It is still<br />
in its very embryonic stages but we are in the<br />
process of building it up to something truly<br />
amazing.<br />
The Amenta has an extraordinary aesthetic<br />
style. What are reasons to choose<br />
such a visual concept?<br />
Chlordane: That was what suited the release<br />
at the time. As you will soon see we are not<br />
defined by that image. Things are constantly<br />
changing. It’s not a matter of reinvention but<br />
showing other facets. Our new album will<br />
show another side.<br />
Your record label ‘Listenable’ posted the<br />
message: "THE AMENTA IS THE HIDDEN<br />
EARTH FORMED IN A FALTERING NEW<br />
MILLENIUM EMBODYING A NEW AGE IN<br />
EXTREMISM.” Could you please describe<br />
for us your general lyrical and musical<br />
concept of your band?<br />
Chlordane: The new age in extremism is us<br />
reclaiming the term extreme. People are under<br />
the misguided idea that extreme music is<br />
defined by speed, technicality and absolute<br />
bullshit such as the pitch of the vocals. This<br />
would make me fucking laugh if it wasn’t so<br />
depressing. We use the term extremism to
epresent extreme IDEAS. An idea is extreme<br />
when it challenges people. Any new idea by<br />
that nature is extreme. This is reflected in the<br />
lyrical and musical concept of the band. We<br />
are constantly looking for new ideas to challenge<br />
ourselves and our listeners. I have no<br />
interest in being part of what modern metal<br />
considers extreme. I wouldn’t listen to that<br />
shit and I sure as fuck don’t want to play it.<br />
It’s boring, pointless and frustrating.<br />
Three words: avant-gardism – anti –<br />
progression! How could they fit into your<br />
understanding of music?<br />
Chlordane: Avant-gardism is an excellent<br />
idea when used correctly. It translates<br />
roughly to vanguard or advance guard. So<br />
therefore it represents the artists who are<br />
pushing boundaries. Going first and forth to<br />
create the paths that others follow. I think it<br />
is extremely important in order for music to<br />
progress and ultimately for me to be interested.<br />
However, I do NOT believe that most<br />
of the bands considered avant-garde are truly<br />
so. It seems in metal that anyone who does<br />
something slightly weird is considered avantgarde.<br />
Unless you are pushing music forward<br />
then this term cannot apply to you. Just using<br />
classical music in heavy metal is not<br />
avant-garde for example. It has been done.<br />
It is not new. It offers nothing.<br />
Anti- A first bastion of the primitive thinker.<br />
You should never approach something determined<br />
to be against it. A knee-jerk reaction<br />
to be against something is proof that you<br />
are not an evolved human. Truly evolved<br />
humans will approach an idea neutrally and<br />
allow their logic to determine whether it is of<br />
worth or not. To be instantly anti-anything is<br />
pathetic. This has NOTHING to do with my<br />
music. Progression is extremely important<br />
and is tied to the idea of avant-gardism. Mu-<br />
77<br />
sic must progress or otherwise it will decay,<br />
exactly as the western world ahs done.<br />
Would you describe The Amenta as art?<br />
Chlordane: Of course. Art is self expression<br />
packaged for outside appreciation. That is<br />
what we do. We are expressing ourselves and<br />
allowing you to see it. Therefore The Amenta<br />
is art.<br />
Your next record will be released in October<br />
2007. Can you tell us something<br />
about the musical and lyrical direction of<br />
your up<strong>com</strong>ing album?<br />
Chlordane: Our next album is entitled n0n<br />
and we are in the process of recording it now.<br />
It is a very different animal to Occasus. This<br />
album is very dark and odd. It’s stitched together<br />
from radio chatter and extremist political<br />
speech. The guitar work is much more<br />
abstract. Less typical metallic riffage, more<br />
noise based. Synth-wise we have rejected all<br />
the typical pseudo-orchestral junk that other<br />
bands use to live out their Dimmu Borgir<br />
fantasies. The synth sounds are all designed<br />
by us. They are uglier and nastier then other<br />
band’s guitar sounds.<br />
Lyrically it deals with Media, Prostitution,<br />
Politics, Junkies and Simpletons. Basically the<br />
world is sick and this is a list of its symptoms.<br />
This is a very different album. We refuse to<br />
repeat ourselves. We may make friends with<br />
this one, we may lose friends. We don’t really<br />
care. This is the best album that you will hear<br />
this year. If you are interested in something<br />
new and exciting check it out. If you prefer<br />
music that is stale, repetitive and obvious<br />
then I am sure you will find something else to<br />
fill your vacant little lives.<br />
Any last words?<br />
Chlordane: Check out virus.theamenta.<strong>com</strong><br />
and www.myspace.<strong>com</strong>/theamenta for updates.<br />
Buy the Occasus re-release.<br />
Stop being so boring. Stop allowing yourself<br />
to be led. Start thinking beyond your prejudice.<br />
Start thinking instead of reacting. Step<br />
away from things. Take a look. Decide if you<br />
want to be a part. Don’t believe everything.<br />
Don’t watch TV. Believe something strongly<br />
enough to kill for it. Prepare for nothing and<br />
expect everything. Embrace a chaotic lifestyle.<br />
If it feels safe, it’s probably killing you. If you<br />
are <strong>com</strong>fortable then you are <strong>com</strong>placent. If<br />
you feel you have succeeded then your goals<br />
aren’t high enough.<br />
The Amenta – music for dissidents.
IMPURE DOMAIN<br />
The Ultimate Frontier Of Sound As An Auricular<br />
Torture<br />
By Jegger<br />
Wow!!! Impure Domain is one of hottest extreme-metal<br />
acts Italy has to offer. These<br />
guys have left the orthodox path of trivial<br />
metal-boredom a long time ago by mixing<br />
Industrial-Death <strong>Metal</strong> and Electro- Trance<br />
with Black <strong>Metal</strong>. Do you think Aborym is<br />
heavy? Do you think Diabolicum is extreme?<br />
Listen to these guys and you will hear what<br />
the term "Storm-Detonation” should stand<br />
for!!! Angy Impure, vocal-extremist of this<br />
outstanding band, tells us something about<br />
the Impure Domain collective, their music,<br />
avantgardism and their future plans!<br />
Jegger: Yo Angy, can you tell us something<br />
about your band Impure Domain in<br />
general (history, sense of the bandname,<br />
discography)? Please introduce yourself!<br />
ANGY: Well, we were born in the beginning of<br />
'99. In 2000 we recorded "Progression to<br />
impurity", in 2002 "Vivere di Male/The Evil<br />
within", while we were playing some gigs<br />
with important acts like Aborym and Undertakers.<br />
In 2004 "HIV Parade" was out, and<br />
now we are making the "Universal murder<br />
promo" and search for a serious label with a<br />
widespread distribution. The band name IM-<br />
PURE DOMAIN at first was mainly referred to<br />
an anti-moral, anti-religious concept, while<br />
78<br />
now it has a more nihilist meaning, a sort of<br />
"promised land=land of shit".<br />
Jegger: Could you recapitulate the different<br />
phases of your musical progression?<br />
ANGY: On our first record we played a sort of<br />
hyper fast black metal with an attitude influenced<br />
by acts like Bathory, Venom, Darkthrone.<br />
Since our second release we started<br />
adding some various electronic/industrial<br />
elements in order to increase the dynamic<br />
range of sound itself, arriving to mix with our<br />
new promo death/black metal with industrial/harsh<br />
soundscapes, the planet autopsy<br />
in notes. Obviously this mutation also involved<br />
the lyrical aspect, since the themes<br />
became influenced by nihilist literature as<br />
Cioran, Celine, Artaud and so on, till reaching<br />
the use of W. Burroughs' "cut-up technique"<br />
on HIV Parade.<br />
Jegger: I want to go a little bit deeper<br />
into the lyrical aspects of your work.<br />
What do you mean by using themes of<br />
nihilist literature such "as Cioran, Celine,<br />
Artaud and so on, till reaching the use of<br />
W. Burroughs'". Can you please explain<br />
this a little bit more?<br />
ANGY: Regarding nihilist literature, I adopted<br />
some themes such as "anti-humanity”, "despite”,<br />
"cynicism”, the futile existence of a<br />
"moral code”...instead, about W.Burroughs,<br />
the technique he adopted consists of a free<br />
association of mental images and words and<br />
in a sudden writing-act, and in this way I<br />
wrote the lyrics for HIV Parade.<br />
Jegger: What is your lyrical concept in<br />
general?<br />
ANGY: The lyrical concept that could contain<br />
all this is APOCALYPTIC ART.<br />
Jegger: How’s the feedback of the media<br />
so far?<br />
ANGY: The feedback was very good, mainly<br />
about "HIV Parade”, that is the CD that had a<br />
bigger distribution/visibility.<br />
Jegger: How would you describe the<br />
style of music, you're playing at the<br />
moment, and what is your musical background?<br />
ANGY: I'm not a lover of classifications, man,<br />
hehehe, but if someone puts a gun into my<br />
mouth to make me say what we play, I'll<br />
answer him: apocalyptic extreme metal.<br />
We have different backgrounds, in fact<br />
Psykoblaster (guitars) is more into<br />
death/black metal, Nevropathic (synths/ pro-
gramming) is a die-hard electro/industrial<br />
maniac...I am a mix of them, listening to<br />
extreme metal and industrial randomly, lol.<br />
Jegger: Ok, which types of bands do you<br />
like?<br />
ANGY: We all listen to different types of<br />
band/sound: Nevropathic is deeply into the<br />
techno/industrial scene; Psykoblaster is a<br />
fanatic of death/black metal, and I listen<br />
from extreme metal to industrial, from movies’<br />
soundtrack to punk ’77.<br />
Jegger: Are there any bands, which play<br />
extreme metal in a progressive way at<br />
the moment in Europe?<br />
ANGY: I could mention DODHEIMSGARD,<br />
TRISTWOOD, ARCHON INFAUSTUS, AK-<br />
ERCKOKE, THE AXIS OF PERDITION five<br />
bands I esteem so much.<br />
Would you describe your band as avantgardistic?<br />
ANGY: Why not, in an extreme sense, yes...<br />
we always tried to rape the genres, to fuck<br />
the boundaries, to menace "the structure";<br />
we are aware to have the weapons to do<br />
that: the "will to dare", in a Luciferian sense<br />
of the term, man.<br />
Jegger: Hmmm, you mentioned "the<br />
"will to dare", in a Luciferian sense of<br />
the term". Are you working with the traditional<br />
lyrical elements of rock-metalblack<br />
metal, or would you describe your<br />
music as something like modern and<br />
provocative art?<br />
ANGY: We feel surely modern and provoca-<br />
79<br />
tive, but obviously with apocalyptic themes<br />
and sound...Lucifer is to be intended as a<br />
metaphor of our will to break boundaries and<br />
clichés.<br />
Jegger: How is the music scene in Italy?<br />
Is your country still the land of Glory,<br />
Power and True <strong>Metal</strong>?<br />
ANGY: Hehehehehehehe, we don't give a fuck<br />
to those disciples of the fuckin' light, with<br />
their fuckin' dragons and fuckin' swords useful<br />
to satisfy their anal desires: the "metal<br />
music" is the only TRUE thing in their imaginary<br />
life. But we have also great bands, such<br />
as YCOSAHATERON (necro/ industrial/ ambient),<br />
ABORYM, HATE PROFILE, while among<br />
new acts I could suggest you A:MADE (Nevropathic<br />
industrial/techno side/project) and<br />
KINETIC DEAD OF UNIVERSE (alternative<br />
rock/ industrial).<br />
Jegger: What do you think of bands like<br />
Ensoph, Aborym, Malfeitor, Ephel Duath?<br />
ANGY: I really like and respect ABORYM and<br />
MALFEITOR, two different conceptions of<br />
HIGH QUALITY BLACK ART. I don’t know very<br />
well the other two acts, so I cannot judge,<br />
sorry.<br />
Jegger: Would you call these bands typical<br />
for Italy by doing something special<br />
or is it true, that Italy loves trivial metal<br />
stuff?<br />
ANGY: I consider these bands "non-typical”,<br />
cause in Italy there is still an insane passion<br />
for dragons, swords and female whispers,<br />
fuck.<br />
Jegger: Your homepage shows me that<br />
Impure Domain needs and wants to have<br />
a strong and unique visual concept.<br />
What’s the idea behind that? Art or<br />
something else?<br />
ANGY: Yeah, you’re right, behind that there is<br />
our passion for EXTREME ART in all its forms<br />
(movies, literature, exhibitions) and actually<br />
Nevropathic is providing for visual concept,
since he is a maniac of video-art and installations.<br />
Jegger: Could Impure Domain<br />
be described as [extreme]<br />
Modern Art?<br />
ANGY: Absolutely yes, the<br />
ultimate frontier of sound as<br />
auricular torture.<br />
Jegger: How do you write<br />
music?<br />
ANGY: I write excerpts after<br />
seeing a weird movie, while reading a book,<br />
at late night during the hangover/time, so I<br />
have often lyrics at hand...Psykoblaster starts<br />
playing some guitar riffs and Nevropathic put<br />
his noises and mental perversions among the<br />
notes: they two often <strong>com</strong>pose during a<br />
movie/sight or alcoholic rituals.<br />
Jegger: Yeehaa….Alcoholic rituals? Do<br />
you mean you are cooking pasta, drinking<br />
grappa and immolate a true Italian<br />
Mermaid?<br />
ANGY: Hehehe, my band mates in Rome often<br />
practise rituals with alcohol, also in a<br />
<strong>com</strong>posing phase; my favourite alcoholic<br />
ritual, instead, is drinking wine and red beers<br />
together with my woman during AC Milan<br />
soccer matches, invoking the incarnation of<br />
the Mighty Lord of the Goal, F.Inzaghi.<br />
Jegger: Why do you play this sort of music?<br />
Is it for the ladies?<br />
ANGY: A precise reason doesn’t exist. We are<br />
conscious we do our best (and reach our personal<br />
satisfaction) when we play so extreme<br />
and we could feel bored playing metal music<br />
in a "normal way”. My lady likes it, so it’s<br />
enough for me, but our music is mainly for<br />
aliens, deviated priests and alcohol-addicted.<br />
Jegger: Hahaha! Good answer! Ok, Code<br />
666, Scarlet Records, <strong>Avantgarde</strong> Music,<br />
Cruz del Sur. Which label would you prefer<br />
and why?<br />
ANGY: I respect all these labels, but let me<br />
say now it’s their business to value our proposal<br />
as original and interesting, hehehe...by<br />
now, get ready for the re-issue of "HIV Parade”<br />
by the Scottish label CDG Records. So<br />
stay tuned...<br />
Jegger: What are the main differences<br />
between "HIV Parade" (2004) and "Universal<br />
murder"(2007) (music, lyrics and<br />
visual concept)?<br />
ANGY: About music, the new tracks are more<br />
80<br />
death metal oriented (see vocals and guitar<br />
riffing) and the industrial traces mark the<br />
songs and fit into them in a perfect way,<br />
according to me. Lyrically speaking, they are<br />
more sadistic and "religious” in a mocking<br />
way. The visual concept now is made by<br />
Nevropathic, so it will be surely better than<br />
in the past, more steel, grey, blood, shit.<br />
Jegger: You’re using a lot of industrial<br />
elements. What’s the reason behind putting<br />
this together with Black and Death<br />
metal?<br />
ANGY: We all think they increase the coldness,<br />
the violence, the fury and the clinical<br />
relax of an autopsy… they paint exactly the<br />
decaying scenarios we mean to show.<br />
Jegger: Do you play live?<br />
ANGY: If in the future there will be cool opportunities,<br />
why not, even if it isn’t our main<br />
purpose…<br />
Jegger: Are there any future plans?<br />
ANGY: Recording the remaining tracks for<br />
"UNIVERSAL MURDER”, waiting for the reissue<br />
of "HIV PARADE“ by CDG Records, increase<br />
our knowledge and feed our will, to try<br />
being always "one step ahead” in the conception<br />
of extreme music.<br />
Jegger: Any last words?<br />
Thanks for this interview, really nice talking<br />
to you, bro… For all the readers of "<strong>Avantgarde</strong><br />
<strong>Metal</strong>”, please check out our websites:<br />
www.impuredomain.net<br />
www.myspace.<strong>com</strong>/impuredomain
DEKADENZ<br />
The Beauty And The Machine<br />
By Polygon<br />
Quite unnoticed the German [D]ekaden[Z],<br />
who are around the underground culture<br />
since 1998, have released their debut album<br />
"Elektronoid” last year. The longplayer features<br />
electrifying extreme metal with dozens<br />
of weird electronic/industrial decoration and<br />
an interesting lyrical concept. Over the last<br />
decades the work with ingredients of extreme<br />
metal and electronica has be<strong>com</strong>e a challenge<br />
for musicians, who want to go a few<br />
steps further than the typical<br />
drums+guitar+bass+disgusting vocals concept.<br />
Symptomatic for most "industrialmetal”<br />
releases (beside<br />
very few exemptions like<br />
ABORYM’s "With No Human<br />
Intervention”) was<br />
their half-hearted realisation<br />
and artistic weakness.<br />
I have to admit that I<br />
don’t see in<br />
[D]ekaden[Z] the revolutionaries<br />
of any genre<br />
nor is their debut a classic,<br />
but at least with<br />
"Mechatronik” and "Vom<br />
Untergang” they created<br />
two pounding and cold<br />
roboter-symphonies that<br />
made me just want to<br />
grab my digital pen to do<br />
an interview and learn<br />
more about their weird<br />
cosmos. Singer L.O.S.<br />
and machinist "@noize”<br />
were so kind to answer<br />
my questions.<br />
Hello guys, greetings from Latvia. How is<br />
good old Germany doing these days?<br />
@noiZe: Hi there! Can't say what's going on<br />
here these days as we are currently too busy<br />
working on our next longplayer to recognise<br />
it. But things are going very well for us.<br />
Thanks for asking.<br />
When I was a teenager I sometimes<br />
used to work in some factories in my city.<br />
I really hated it, but it was good and fast<br />
money. However, in these days I felt<br />
what "human alienation” was all about.<br />
Being part of the machine, the merciless<br />
system of money accumulation. According<br />
to your biography, "Eletronoid” deals<br />
with the consequences of the technical<br />
81<br />
and digital revolutions. What exactly are<br />
the out<strong>com</strong>es of the last two decades<br />
development for the evolution of human<br />
being?<br />
@noiZe: That's a good question, as we just<br />
installed our 750GB divX player, full of porn<br />
in our studio, 5min before.<br />
L.O.S.: ...and two zombie movies<br />
@noiZe: No doubt, the Internet is a huge<br />
step in evolution. When we grew up, there<br />
were only analogue wired telephones, and<br />
now the I-phone in our pocket connects us to<br />
a world-wide collective 24h a day. We've all<br />
be<strong>com</strong>e small cyborgs. We take what the<br />
wire gives us.<br />
L.O.S.: and what if this wire will be cut one<br />
day?<br />
@noiZe: And of cause Laboga guitar amps<br />
are also a great invention in our century.<br />
a flute?<br />
Your overall concept, e.g.<br />
lyrics, outfits and music<br />
has an obvious connection<br />
to the "Brave New<br />
World”. The way how you<br />
create your music, by<br />
using sound software,<br />
programmed drums and<br />
synthesizers, wouldn’t be<br />
able without the rapidly<br />
developing technical<br />
skills of mankind. On one<br />
hand you have a critical<br />
eye on our today’s situation;<br />
on the other hand<br />
you don’t miss to use<br />
present advantages to<br />
create your own visions.<br />
How does that fit? If<br />
there is an alienation of<br />
human being that should<br />
be criticised, wouldn’t it<br />
make more sense just to<br />
sit in the woods and<br />
smash some acoustic<br />
drums to the melodies of<br />
L.O.S.: That's easy to answer as the question<br />
is wrong. We don't criticise the technical<br />
revolution at all. If it all leads to the destruction<br />
of us, that's the way it has to be, and<br />
that's fine with us.<br />
@noiZe: Art shouldn't be critical in my eyes.<br />
We are just painting pictures. Yes of course,<br />
our paintings are not the nice looking ones.<br />
Expressionism 2.0 maybe.<br />
As you may have noticed our webpage<br />
deals with vanguard art exclusively.<br />
Since the launch of avantgardemetal.<strong>com</strong><br />
there has been a lively discussion<br />
about what this term really<br />
means and how one should define this
style (not to speak about its musical<br />
genesis). My dictionary tells me that<br />
"avantgarde” is originally a military expression,<br />
which stands for the soldiers in<br />
a battle who fight in the very first row<br />
and who are supposed to die first. Do<br />
you feel sometimes like a warrior of the<br />
first row and how do you define "avantgarde<br />
metal” for yourself?<br />
@noiZe: I simply don't want to define it. For<br />
the warrior in the first row the whole terrain<br />
is undefined. We are not making music to be<br />
industrial, avantgarde or whatever metal. I<br />
hate bands that are hiding behind a genre.<br />
Definition leads to routine and routine means<br />
death to the art.<br />
L.O.S.: Those who put us into these genres<br />
are the listeners. That's OK....you may do<br />
that if you want to, but we are only making<br />
music.<br />
Would you consider [D]edaken[Z] to be<br />
part of this movement?<br />
@noiZe: No, I don’t think we are. Maybe a lot<br />
of our fans are part of this movement and we<br />
like a lot of bands that are put into this genre<br />
(Ram-Zet or Dagoba for example), but music<br />
does not have to be in a special genre to be<br />
interesting for me and the most of our fans.<br />
Music should create impressions and play<br />
with our feelings.<br />
L.O.S.: It just has to feel good. Some feel<br />
<strong>com</strong>fortable when they receive pain, some<br />
when they fuck with groups of teenage students<br />
and some when they are listening to<br />
our music.<br />
As far as I know, you started as more or<br />
less <strong>com</strong>mon melody Black <strong>Metal</strong> act.<br />
82<br />
What music had an influence on "Elektronoid”?<br />
Do you have any idea where<br />
this journey might end?<br />
@noiZe: Puh...can’t remember anymore. Of<br />
course we are influenced by other bands,<br />
feelings, weather, guitar amps, drugs, sex or<br />
whatever, but you don't think about a<br />
why....that's why we make music. If you say:<br />
"Hey maybe in this song, you must have<br />
been influenced by this or that?”, I would<br />
say: ”Yeahh...maybe, but it's not important<br />
to me. Important is: There is this song and it<br />
sounds good to us, and it makes us feel like<br />
we wanted to feel, when we wrote it.”<br />
L.O.S.: exactly...<br />
Let’s go once more back to the digital<br />
revolution. The Internet offers a lot of<br />
possibilities for musicians like you and<br />
me. Platforms such as mp3.<strong>com</strong> or<br />
MySpace provide a meta-level between<br />
artist and fan, where nobody really is<br />
dependent on a record deal to spread his<br />
or her ideas and visions. It's possible to<br />
reach a lot of people in different countries<br />
all over the world. This might be<br />
seen as the total freedom of expression.<br />
Anyhow, I have very negative feelings<br />
about music as "User Generated Content”.<br />
The value of art is decreasing as it<br />
is available at the push of a button. For<br />
me one should invest some effort in order<br />
to get music. One should walk out<br />
into the city, or at least call a mail-order<br />
and wait for something someone worked<br />
hard for with pure devotion. At least<br />
something should rotate when I listen to<br />
music and it shouldn’t just exist of bits<br />
and bytes.
What are your feelings towards the invention<br />
of mp3 and "innovations” like<br />
MySpace? As far as I know you published<br />
your album before the regular<br />
release on CD in the Internet. Why did<br />
you do that and what was your experience?<br />
Will you continue to first provide<br />
the music of [D]ekaden[Z] online?<br />
L.O.S.: Yes you are right. I also prefer having<br />
music on a real CD with nice jewel case and<br />
booklet, but we have just entered the next<br />
generation. Most people of our generation<br />
have never seen a gramophone, those of the<br />
next generation will maybe never own a tape.<br />
The kids, growing up today are <strong>download</strong>ing<br />
their music via itunes on their ipod (we are<br />
not sponsored by apple!!!) or their mobile<br />
and nobody knows what <strong>com</strong>es next. We<br />
won’t change that. Everything old will die one<br />
day and something new will be created.<br />
That's evolution.<br />
When I saw your live appearance at the<br />
Nebelmond-Festival in Germany (with<br />
avant-garde godfathers ARCTURUS –<br />
lucky bastards!) after the concert some<br />
of you guys were sitting lazy on chairs to<br />
enjoy some of the other bands. I remember<br />
thinking "These guys take their<br />
concept very serious”. Is there any esoteric<br />
idea behind the name<br />
[D]ekaden[Z]? What does this word<br />
mean to you and how does decadence<br />
influence your lifestyle?<br />
@noiZe: Decadence does not only influence<br />
our live, but the live of everyone in this time.<br />
It is the headline of our time somehow. Just<br />
think how much money you spent to stay<br />
alive and how much you spent to live.<br />
Do you get any inspiration from philosophy<br />
and/or literature?<br />
L.O.S.: You want me to say something like<br />
Nietzsche, right? No I'm sorry. Reality is the<br />
cruellest author. Of cause we like philosophic<br />
literature but philosophy teaches to make<br />
your own thoughts, not to copy the ideas of<br />
other people. This is called religion.<br />
@noiZe: Would you ask a philosopher if he is<br />
inspired by music?<br />
What is the difference listening to your<br />
songs being on angel dust or in a sober<br />
condition?<br />
@noiZe: Well, "elektronoid” was not written<br />
to be used with angel dust. It was written for<br />
LSD, but we realized that LSD is no more up<br />
to date, maybe we will produce our next<br />
longplayer for angel dust too. As limited edition<br />
maybe.<br />
83<br />
L.O.S.: Just try it out, you only need angel<br />
dust, sold by your local dealer, and "elektronoid”,<br />
sold by us.<br />
What is the reason for being before<br />
death's salvation?<br />
L.O.S.: We are the once who asked this question.<br />
It is my job to ask it!!!<br />
@noiZe: Maybe the question, maybe there is<br />
no reason, but only the fact that we are here.<br />
What is there going on nowadays in the<br />
[D]ekaden[Z]-camp? Are you working on<br />
a new album? Please give us a short<br />
overview about your future plans.<br />
@noiZe: After we just deinstalled some of our<br />
band members, we are now working hard on<br />
our second longplayer. I've mixed down some<br />
previews of our preproduction for you and the<br />
<strong>com</strong>munity, and you will think that "elektronoid”<br />
sounds absurd <strong>com</strong>pared to it.<br />
L.O.S.: [D]ekaden[Z] are currently only<br />
@noiZe and me, and I really have to say<br />
things are working much better now. No<br />
<strong>com</strong>promises any more, no more discussions,<br />
the music we make is just what <strong>com</strong>es directly<br />
out of our minds. @noiZe is now playing<br />
guitar, and that's why we are writing our<br />
songs with guitars, drums and vocals first.<br />
The synths are added later. That has the<br />
amazing effect that we just add parts to our<br />
songs that are sounding like the sense of my<br />
lyrics, even if they are only played on guitar.<br />
We always tried to achieve this by using<br />
synths, in the past. When we now add the<br />
synthesizers, the orchestra or the digital<br />
drums, everything sounds so extreme, that<br />
you know what the song is about, even without<br />
vocals.<br />
@noiZe: After we have finished song writing<br />
and preproduction, we will record the album.<br />
This will be around spring 2008. We are<br />
happy that we got an endorsement with<br />
Laboga for guitar amps. Also we are looking<br />
forward to have a real drummer for the recordings.<br />
We are currently looking for musicians<br />
(2nd guitars, bass, and drums) for live<br />
performance.
GIRE<br />
The End Of A Dream<br />
By revon<br />
This Autumn kicked off with a sad<br />
announcement, Gire has split up<br />
due to guitarist/vocalist Zolcsi's<br />
will to stop all his musical activities.<br />
But for Gire still there was<br />
another gig to be held - and for<br />
me another journey and concert<br />
to go and enjoy. On the 22nd of<br />
September, after 12 years Gire<br />
ends its career with a concert<br />
held at the II. Hódstock Festival.<br />
But before their very last performance<br />
I had an interview with<br />
keyboardist/lyricist/programmer<br />
Tamás in the backstage talking about past,<br />
present and future.<br />
What have you been doing before joining<br />
Gire, Tamás? What other musical projects<br />
did you have that time and which<br />
are the still-existing ones among them?<br />
I joined Gire and around that time created<br />
my one-man project, Thy Catafalque which is<br />
still active. Before Gire there was Darklight,<br />
but nowadays it isn't necessary to release<br />
albums as Darklight and now I use my own<br />
name. Later Gort came which can be considered<br />
as the child of Catafalque and Gire. Oh,<br />
I have nearly forgotten Towards Rusted Soil<br />
which is used to be a black metal band.<br />
How did you be<strong>com</strong>e a member of Gire?<br />
How old were you that time?<br />
Well, it was in 1996, so I was around 20. The<br />
others were my friends. They recorded a<br />
demo and wanted a keyboardist in the band<br />
afterwards. They were thinking about having<br />
samplers and industrial effects in the music<br />
like Prong had.<br />
How have you been feeling yourself in<br />
Gire at the beginning as a new member?<br />
Oh, we knew each other from our childhood<br />
we were friends since then, so it was easy to<br />
fit in. Those who liked this music in the '90s<br />
all knew each other. I was a bit older than<br />
the others but we were attending the same<br />
school so there wasn't any problem with it.<br />
What was your way of thinking about life<br />
and everything?<br />
(Laughs) I hadn't been thinking about this, I<br />
was attending a teacher trainee college, later<br />
84<br />
got graduated but didn't really like it, and it's<br />
not my profession today either.<br />
What ideas did you bring to the band?<br />
We can't deny that you were the one<br />
who brought new, revolutionizing ideas.<br />
The first song we wrote together<br />
was "Törjön testünk!"<br />
and it was full of samples.<br />
There were industrial clicks<br />
and cracks, similar to the<br />
sounds of clashing iron, Necropsia<br />
featured something<br />
like this on their album "Mélység".<br />
So in the first version<br />
of "Törjön testünk!" you<br />
cannot find ordinary keyboards<br />
and synths, just<br />
samples. As the time went<br />
by I had been playing a lot,<br />
trained myself and managed to play new,<br />
more <strong>com</strong>plex melodies and such. So as I<br />
improved, much more keyboards came into<br />
the music but they were not effects and samples<br />
anymore, but real keyboard playing.<br />
Never wanted to go for the vocals?<br />
In Thy Catafalque I'm the vocalist.<br />
Yeah, I know, but in Gire?<br />
Oh, no, I didn't want to perform the vocals<br />
here (laughs). There has always been a vocalist.<br />
There wasn't a need for another and in<br />
concerts I can't do them while simultaneously<br />
playing on my instrument.<br />
When did you start to write poems?<br />
Around the age of seventeen, everybody<br />
starts it around that time.<br />
Did some poets influence you?<br />
Oh, yes, sure, some of them actually did.<br />
Can you name some who had this impact<br />
on you?<br />
Yes, the poets and writers of Nyugat, all the<br />
three generations but one of my favourite is<br />
Radnóti, I like his works very much.<br />
Do you still write new poems?<br />
Yes, but not that often as in the past.<br />
Will these new ones be published in the<br />
future?<br />
Yes, when there will be enough to bring out a<br />
new volume. The first volume contains poems<br />
from the past 8 years, so the new release
won't <strong>com</strong>e out tomorrow. Frankly, I'm not<br />
that type which sits down and thinks; "Yes,<br />
I'm about the write a poem", no. When inspiration<br />
<strong>com</strong>es I write it down, but that's all.<br />
It's a slow progress now. It was faster and<br />
more productive in the past, because I was in<br />
bad mood.<br />
And how did the idea <strong>com</strong>e to use your<br />
poems as lyrics?<br />
Well, there wasn't anyone in the band who<br />
wrote lyrics. However, the first demo featured<br />
lyrics of Zolcsi. But later he stopped<br />
writing and they knew I had poems. So we<br />
tried whether they can fit in the songs, and<br />
actually it worked. So this is it, we use them<br />
since then.<br />
Where does the inspiration <strong>com</strong>e from?<br />
From your fantasy or are they based on<br />
your real life?<br />
Based on my feelings, that's all. I don't think<br />
it should be propaganda-like or connected to<br />
political or social happenings, but must mirror<br />
my feelings and thoughts.<br />
How do you create music? I'm sure you<br />
are responsible for the keyboards and<br />
the drum machine.<br />
Yes, I am. Zolcsi does the guitars, imagines it,<br />
then plays it and after all we discuss whether<br />
it is good or not. But I wrote the main part of<br />
the songs recently and he played guitars for<br />
it, despite the fact that some time ago he<br />
brought his ideas first, and then I put on the<br />
keys. Balázs also came up with good themes.<br />
What was the main path to follow during<br />
the band's career? To make something<br />
85<br />
new, something more colorful? Was<br />
there anything like that?<br />
There was, probably in the beginning. Around<br />
that time in Hungary every second band<br />
played modern brutal metal (as they were<br />
called that time) covering Pantera, Machine<br />
Head, Korn, so did we.<br />
Then we figured out we<br />
should play something<br />
that differs from it, using<br />
the keys more intensely.<br />
But later it disappeared<br />
and we didn't mind it, we<br />
just did what we liked, so<br />
the will to play music<br />
differently had gone, we<br />
didn't care for more what<br />
the others played.<br />
What is your opinion<br />
about the Hungarian<br />
metal and the world's<br />
<strong>Avantgarde</strong> scene?<br />
I think there are good<br />
metal bands in Hungary,<br />
I like Watch my Dying, Isten Háta Mögött -<br />
actually they are really respected in certain<br />
circles, but I also listen to Aebsence, Wackor,<br />
and to some old ones such as Necropsia,<br />
Subject, The Bedlam, Korai Öröm, Másfél and<br />
VHK. But I like those strange bands that are<br />
playing something different.<br />
And what about the foreign acts?<br />
Well, I really like Sleepytime Gorilla Museum,<br />
UnexpecT, Arcturus... I also like the new<br />
Ulver album.<br />
Wow, I have only listened to one track<br />
yet.<br />
There's a Black Sabbath<br />
cover on it, did<br />
you know? It's great.<br />
Yeah, I knew, but<br />
I've never really listened<br />
to Black Sabbath.<br />
Oh, but that song is<br />
one of the best on the<br />
album. Anyway, I'm<br />
not really into this, I<br />
only know a few bands,<br />
but I don't look for new<br />
ones on the internet, I already have too<br />
much music at home, and have no time to<br />
listen to them.
Any of them influenced Gire?<br />
Yes, their way of thinking, the way they look<br />
on music. It is possible to create music in a<br />
different way. I think it is good to hear what<br />
they figure out, their crazy attitude to music;<br />
breaking the rules, this inspires me too. But<br />
on the other hand I don't like when it's just<br />
mixed together and directly for to differ. In<br />
my opinion there must be a certain image of<br />
a song. It doesn't matter whether it is created<br />
in an ordinary or in a progressive way.<br />
How did Gire feel in this scene? Are<br />
there bands you had good relationship<br />
with?<br />
Yes, sure, we never had arguments with the<br />
bands we played together with - during the<br />
12 years we didn't play too many times either,<br />
we only had 82 or 83 concerts, it's not much<br />
I think. Personally I haven't got any problems<br />
with the scene.<br />
We could say that<br />
the Hungarian<br />
metal scene is<br />
responsible for<br />
Gire's disbanding<br />
but no, that<br />
wouldn't be true.<br />
We could say they<br />
don't admit the<br />
talent and it's<br />
hard to break out<br />
as well, but no,<br />
the reason for<br />
splitting up is not<br />
this. I think we<br />
are well respected<br />
in the press, as well as in certain circles. We<br />
felt really good ourselves.<br />
Yes, we arrived to the concert questions.<br />
So which ones were the most memorable<br />
ones in the past 12 years?<br />
Probably one of them was the support gig for<br />
Ektomorf at the A38 Ship in January. We<br />
liked the place. Another one was performing<br />
before Soulfly at Petöfi Csarnok. This was a<br />
great thing really. We also liked giving concerts<br />
at the Nightbreed Festivals, as well as<br />
in Marco Polo.<br />
86<br />
You have a Marco Polo video on youtube,<br />
Zöld Zivatar, right?<br />
Yes, we have that one.<br />
Have you ever been invited to play<br />
abroad?<br />
No.<br />
Never?<br />
Once we played a gig in Senta (Serbia) supporting<br />
Watch my Dying.<br />
Never wanted to make music abroad?<br />
Hungarian language could have been a problem.<br />
In this case I don't want to translate the<br />
lyrics. Anyway, the whole band travels to<br />
abroad in the near future.<br />
But you don't, do you?<br />
I do.<br />
Really?<br />
Yes.<br />
Wow, that's new for me. And where will<br />
you go to?<br />
To Scotland.<br />
You too?<br />
Yes.<br />
And what are you going to do<br />
there?<br />
Nothing, I don't know. (laughs) Okay,<br />
I will definitely do something but<br />
have no idea at the moment. I have<br />
many friends living there, for instance<br />
Imre, the ex-vocalist of Gire. I will<br />
travel to him. Balázs, our bass player<br />
lives in Scotland as well; Zolcsi will go<br />
to Tamás Rozsnyai, the exguitarist/vocalist<br />
of the band who<br />
lives in London. But this doesn't mean<br />
that we will continue playing in Gire.<br />
Zolcsi won't do it anymore. We are<br />
still good friends as we were always, no matter<br />
what happened in the band...imagine that<br />
our ex-drummer Gábor took us here.<br />
How much did you usually rehearse for a<br />
concert? And how did it go?<br />
For this one we practiced 3 times of this week<br />
and we managed to play the songs well.<br />
Do you personally go to concerts?<br />
I used to go many times but in this year I<br />
don't even know where I went to. (laughs) I<br />
remember I wanted to see Cynic<br />
but actually I didn't go. However<br />
I've been to a festival organized<br />
by a broadcasting <strong>com</strong>pany but it<br />
was a piece of crap...at least it<br />
was free of charge. Actually I<br />
don't want to pay for concerts or<br />
anything. I don't buy CDs either. I<br />
have no money at all. This is why<br />
I move to Scotland, this is the<br />
reason why I leave Hungary. Here
in Makó, there isn't any possibility for a good<br />
job.<br />
So you leave the hospital? (Current place<br />
of job)<br />
Of course, I do. Look, I get the minimal wage<br />
in every month and it's simply not enough. I<br />
only have money to go to job to Szeged Hospital<br />
on the every next day, nothing more.<br />
That's the problem. This is why young people<br />
are leaving Makó.<br />
Oh, I see.. Let's have a look on your side<br />
projects. What about your ambient one<br />
headlined by your own name, Kátai<br />
Tamás? Will you continue working on<br />
new material?<br />
It's the matter of my mood. The album "Erika<br />
szobája" was a really special one. It has its<br />
story...I need another story like that to make<br />
another album.<br />
Is there any chance that you will feature<br />
covers of poems written by other poets<br />
on the new Thy Catafalque album like<br />
you did on "Tünö Idö Tárlat"?<br />
No, not really, mainly because of the copyrights.<br />
Last time it was a big problem, I don't<br />
want that procedure again that I had with the<br />
poems of Radnóti and Weöres. Fortunately I<br />
had no problems with Ady because he died<br />
much earlier.<br />
What can we expect from the music?<br />
Will there be rough, heavy songs and<br />
light, soft ones as well?<br />
One will find tracks in both of these styles. It<br />
will be more extreme in variety. 10-15 minutes<br />
are already done, and there will be a<br />
song which is similar to "Héja-Nász az Avaron"<br />
concerning the atmosphere. It will be a<br />
4 minutes slow, doom-like song. However, I<br />
don't want to mix too many styles like a maniac<br />
if it's not for a good cause.<br />
87<br />
And what about the lyrical themes? Will<br />
there be changes? You told me in an email<br />
that it will contain more songs that<br />
have something to do with Autumn. But<br />
there is the cosmology, time and space<br />
as a theme in your lyrics.<br />
Oh, well, there were songs already featuring<br />
Autumn, have a look at "Héja-Nász az Avaron"<br />
or "Zápor", but yes, there will be new<br />
ones, like "Öszi Varázslók", which is obvious<br />
("Öszi Varázslók" is "Autumn Wizards" in<br />
English). I'm not sure about the themes yet<br />
but time will tell.<br />
Will it be a digipack release?<br />
Well, first the songs must be <strong>com</strong>pleted, and<br />
here's my problem. We are planning to move<br />
to Scotland in the middle of January. So I<br />
have to finish the master CD at least. I won't<br />
have time abroad to write music and such, I<br />
can't bring out my PC there. So it will be<br />
waiting for my return.<br />
How much time will you spend out<br />
there?<br />
I don't know, nothing is in shape yet. Currently<br />
there are so many changes in my life<br />
that I cannot tell surely. Permanent things<br />
are also changing, so does the view I look on<br />
music. It won't be the most important. But I<br />
really try to work every day on this release,<br />
Nikoletta <strong>com</strong>es tomorrow to record some<br />
female vocals for two new songs but I don't<br />
want to mess up the whole thing, so the album<br />
will <strong>com</strong>e out when it has to.<br />
Do you think the<br />
band managed to<br />
achieve the most it<br />
could or not?<br />
No, no...I don't know.<br />
We succeed to record<br />
the CD. I'm really satisfied<br />
with the album.<br />
I'm proud of it. And in<br />
my opinion we had<br />
much more in ourselves,<br />
so I would<br />
continue with Gire. But<br />
we all know what the<br />
situation is. Recently<br />
Zolcsi suffered from a<br />
lack of creativity and I<br />
didn't want to create it all myself because<br />
then it would be Thy Catafalque material.<br />
Gire wasn't about just me, but the three of us.<br />
But we cannot continue in a situation like this.<br />
There isn't any point to run this band for<br />
more. We aren't sad about it. Okay, I am, but<br />
we must admit that this was the right decision.
ANSUR<br />
Mad Max, Cognac And Postapocalyptic Cigars<br />
By Jegger and Chrystof<br />
Ansur is a young Black/ Death <strong>Metal</strong> band<br />
from Norway, which is nothing special, as we<br />
all know. But Ansur is different. Is this the<br />
new Norwegian avantgarde/ extreme metal<br />
phenomenon after bands like Emperor, Zyklon,<br />
Thorns or early Myrkskog? Due to the<br />
band their last record Axiom incorporated<br />
"stronger progressive elements in addition to<br />
the black and death metal styles to create<br />
something more characteristic and unique".<br />
Indeed these fresh guys are very promising<br />
to be<strong>com</strong>e a new progressive extreme metal<br />
sensation. Jegger and Chrystof met Espen<br />
A.R. Aulie (EA - vocals, bass, and lyrics) and<br />
Torstein J. Nipe (T - guitars, programming<br />
and <strong>com</strong>position) for a glass of cognac and<br />
some illegal Havanna Cigars...<br />
C: Torstein, you've just returned from<br />
holidays in Sicily. Any weird stories<br />
about that? Donne with moustache? Mafia<br />
trade with body parts? Men mistaken<br />
for women at the nightly beach? Or just<br />
the typical Scandinavian debaucheries<br />
with Italian wine and<br />
grappa?<br />
T: My cover was to go there on<br />
vacation with the family, but I<br />
was really doing a secret mission<br />
for the mafia. I came there<br />
to sell six legs, four arms and<br />
one moustache. Because I was<br />
mistaken for a woman at night,<br />
no one could see what I was up<br />
to, and it all turned out a success!<br />
C: Your Debut "Carved in<br />
Flesh" (2004) seemed to be<br />
influenced by Darkthrone very much. It<br />
was raw Black <strong>Metal</strong> with some little<br />
innovative elements. Just two years<br />
later you released your killer-album<br />
88<br />
"Axiom", a masterpiece of avant-garde<br />
metal. What was the reason for this<br />
radical change in style? Drugs or drug<br />
withdrawal?<br />
T: Thanks, hehe. Well, I was about 15 or<br />
something when "Carved in Flesh” was recorded<br />
in my cellar, and I guess we just matured<br />
a great deal since then. I’ve grown up<br />
with progressive rock of the 70’s, which is<br />
true of all members of the band; my first<br />
meeting with a guitar was when my father<br />
taught me the riff of "Breathe” (Pink Floyd)<br />
when I was 5. So instead of nerding around<br />
like the other kids, listening to 90’s trance, I<br />
was playing guitar. OK, maybe Scooter was<br />
really cool (still is actually), but you get my<br />
point! So I guess we "went back to our childhood<br />
roots”, by throwing in progressive elements.<br />
It’s really important for us to play<br />
whatever we want, regardless if we turn into<br />
a Scooter cover band (not that this is planned<br />
in near future!!). I have no relationship with<br />
drugs at all, but I can only speak for myself<br />
of course. But my favourite bands would<br />
probably not be what they are if it hadn’t<br />
been for the 60-70s drug-frenzy.<br />
C: How did the Norwegian Black <strong>Metal</strong><br />
Scene react to "Axiom"? Do you feel like<br />
lost sons now? Did any BM-lunatics<br />
threaten to punish you for this "untrue"<br />
album?<br />
T: The scene reacted amazingly well (if this<br />
"scene” of today could be defined), and to my<br />
big disappointment, we got NO hate mail.<br />
NONE! No death threats or pub-beatings for<br />
being uNtR00 or anything. People in the<br />
metal scene have only given us <strong>com</strong>pliments<br />
here, and we got no bad reviews in Norway<br />
at all. It’s always nice for a band to get to the<br />
point where followers of the genre know who<br />
they are. By the way, I hope our new album<br />
will hit all minimalist old school losers like a<br />
kick in face! The old school<br />
fans actually seemed to like<br />
"Axiom”, so that’s a little<br />
strange.<br />
J: I know you don't like to<br />
talk about that so much.<br />
But can you give us some<br />
hints about the concept<br />
behind "Axiom"?<br />
EA: The thing is. I really don’t<br />
know how we came up with<br />
the idea of mixing an alien<br />
invasion with unsolved, biblical<br />
mysteries into an "Axiom.” My<br />
guess is either loads of alcohol or too much<br />
of the shit Erich Von Däniken writes.<br />
The writing gets a lot easier when you have a<br />
red line to go after, and I think the listeners
get more into the album with these moodswitches<br />
we include in the lyrics. And if not,<br />
fuck it. We tried right?<br />
I wont give you any hint’s I’m afraid, but if<br />
you check out what an "Axiom” is, and if you<br />
read the lyrics on Axiom and eventually our<br />
up<strong>com</strong>ing release I’ll bet you’ll figure it out (if<br />
you’re a smart, capitalistic, up going, young<br />
man)<br />
J: What is a Post-Apocalyptic Wasteland?<br />
Could you describe that a little bit<br />
clearer and what do you mean with your<br />
musical definition: A journey through<br />
peculiar soundscapes?<br />
T: That quote was from one<br />
of the first reviews we got<br />
of "Axiom”. I think it fitted<br />
pretty well. A Post-<br />
Apocalyptic Wasteland in<br />
our case is a barren terrain<br />
destroyed by a nuclear disaster.<br />
Just watch the Mad<br />
Max-movies, which also<br />
served as inspiration for the<br />
concept of the album, both<br />
visually and musically.<br />
C: You mentioned Erik<br />
Van Däniken. Do you<br />
believe in UFOs? If yes,<br />
do you think they <strong>com</strong>e<br />
from outer space or from<br />
another dimension?<br />
E: I believe that every "proven” alien visitation<br />
in our time is made up. The thing about<br />
Däniken is that its either bullshit, or "semifacts.”<br />
Unlike others he presents hypothesis’s<br />
that I find interesting and sometimes logical.<br />
Some of those hypothesis’s are included in<br />
the background of our "fictional universe,”<br />
and I doubt that anyone have understood it.<br />
YET!<br />
C: "Axiom" has been recorded in your<br />
own studio. What equipment did you<br />
use?<br />
T: Everything was recorded on a <strong>com</strong>puter.<br />
We play only stylish instruments, and that<br />
means Fender Stratocasters and Marshall<br />
Amps. The Rolls Royce and Rolex of music<br />
equipment!<br />
C: Fifteen Years ago bands had to record<br />
their songs on 4-track tape recorders.<br />
For bigger productions you had to go to<br />
expensive studios. Nowadays it has be<strong>com</strong>e<br />
very easy to make good and extensive<br />
productions at home. Do you<br />
think you could have done an album like<br />
"Axiom" back in the 1990ies? How much<br />
89<br />
did the process and possibilities of recording<br />
influence your songs?<br />
T: We broke a little mental barrier when we<br />
decided to do it at home. I’ve only recorded<br />
an album in another studio ONCE, and I decided<br />
to never do it again. I think influence<br />
and opinions from other people sets a mark<br />
on the product, and we want things to sound<br />
as much as us as possible. People can be<br />
sure that everything is done by us, and we<br />
don’t have to think about things as time pressure<br />
for example. So we thought "why not do<br />
it ourselves?” It is also very important for us<br />
to drink cognac and smoke cigars while we<br />
are in the studio.<br />
EA: So by lowering the production costs we<br />
are able to buy more expensive cognac<br />
brands and illegally imported Cuban cigars.<br />
Increased quantity and quality. Win/win<br />
right?<br />
C: I know this is a boring standard question.<br />
But what does "Ansur" mean?<br />
EA & T: Wow, that’s like a boring and standard<br />
question! Anyway, it’s like a rune or<br />
something. Google is your friend.<br />
J: You are working with Nocturnal Art at<br />
the moment. How is the relationship<br />
with this <strong>com</strong>pany? Is Samoth a nice<br />
chief and do you feel sometimes like a<br />
Zyklon-Cover band?<br />
T: Samoth knows the music industry and<br />
business, and we have learned a great deal<br />
from him, plus good advice etc. Working with<br />
Nocturnal Art is great, if they hadn’t picked<br />
us up, we probably would be signed to some<br />
shitty underground label from Eastern Asia.<br />
EA: We actually tour as Zyklon sometimes, so<br />
they can sit at home and smile. It’s funny;
we earn more money that way. Zyklon last<br />
Inferno festival that was us! No seriously, no<br />
one thinks we sound like Zyklon at all.<br />
J: What do progression, individualism<br />
and avantgardism mean to you? Do you<br />
feel like a band that redefined the extreme<br />
metal genre?<br />
T: The traits you mention there is very important<br />
to us. Maybe we haven’t redefined<br />
the genre yet (or genres), but we will! Besides,<br />
no other extreme metal band play concerts<br />
in suits and ties. So we have already<br />
redefined style with our exclusive appearance!<br />
C: Suits and Ties, Cigars, Cognac, Rolex,<br />
Rolls Royce...Aren't you afraid to loose<br />
ground under your feet sometimes? I<br />
mean many young Bands do...It starts<br />
with fun and ends with hybris.<br />
T: You forgot limousines! I’m afraid we have<br />
already lost touch with reality, and the<br />
ground under our feet disappeared last year.<br />
Seriously, if we’re talking about our music, I<br />
would with all my heart see that it never<br />
touches the ground. I wouldn’t like it at all if<br />
we ever made stuff that was "down to earth”.<br />
Actually I would like it to be as far away from<br />
the ground at possible, we want it to sound<br />
spaced, unearthly and kind of "dreaming”.<br />
C: Yes, it's the privilege of artists to create<br />
their own worlds beyond the <strong>com</strong>mon<br />
world. But imagine you would have<br />
to be a politician. You would have the<br />
power to let the world in your head be<strong>com</strong>e<br />
the <strong>com</strong>mon world. What would<br />
you do then? What would you like to<br />
change?<br />
T: I can’t really say to you what I’d change.<br />
That would really be giving away my plans for<br />
world dictatorship! Otherwise, I hope that no<br />
one gets that kind of power. Particularly<br />
scary, with <strong>com</strong>munism on the rise again (at<br />
least here and in Russia). What would you<br />
like to change?<br />
90<br />
C: I would make an ANSUR song the new<br />
national anthem of Uruguay. By the way,<br />
into which new musical territories will<br />
you flow on in the nearer future?<br />
T: The new album will be a mingle of progressive<br />
metal, 70s progressive rock, 80s<br />
prog-pop, extreme metal, blues/jazz and a<br />
whole variety of different stuff woven together<br />
in a very special way. The arrangements<br />
are taking up most of the time, but I’d<br />
say the album is about 70% percent finished<br />
when it <strong>com</strong>es to writing. There are preproductions<br />
recorded also. It’s more melodic<br />
and dramatic than Axiom, kind of a "larger<br />
scale”. There are little synths on the album,<br />
but a lot of Hammond organ to get that 70s<br />
progressive rock feels, you know?<br />
There are also choruses in the songs, in opposition<br />
to Axiom, which was a little unorganized<br />
when it came to the arrangements.<br />
C: Choruses? So maybe you will end up<br />
in the Billboard Charts one day?<br />
T: I’d like that very much.<br />
E: Why not?<br />
C: You've done lots of concerts in Scandinavia.<br />
Are there any plans that you will<br />
also tour through the rest of Europe?<br />
E: We’ll tour the entire world for that matter,<br />
but that thought isn’t just realistic yet. When<br />
we have the time and resources at disposal,<br />
we will.<br />
T: Yeah, we would very much like to play<br />
gigs abroad, but the opportunity hasn’t <strong>com</strong>e<br />
yet. We talked to some arrangers, but nothing<br />
was planned.<br />
C: Many bands <strong>com</strong>plain about bad and<br />
unprofessional conditions on tour. Do<br />
you think groupies can <strong>com</strong>pensate for<br />
that? Or are you in the tight hands of<br />
girlfriends?<br />
EA: Why make a <strong>com</strong>mitment when you can<br />
get laid without it?
T: Girlfriends are bad for the creativity, the<br />
music <strong>com</strong>es first. When a girl starts to take<br />
up my time so I can’t make music, she instantly<br />
gets dumped.<br />
C: Okay Espen and Torstein. Now we'll<br />
change rolls. You can ask me a question.<br />
T: Okay, this is part of the lyrics of which<br />
song by which famous 80s artist? "There’s a<br />
concert hall in Vienna where your mouth had<br />
a thousand reviews. There’s a bar where the<br />
boys have stopped talking they’ve been sentenced<br />
to death by the blues”<br />
C: I guess FALCO, right?<br />
EA: Who's the 31st president of USA?<br />
91<br />
C: Internet says my good friend Herbert<br />
C. Hoover. And now you can ask yourself<br />
a question - one that you always wanted<br />
to answer, but nobody has asked it so<br />
far.<br />
T: Do your amps go to 11?<br />
EA: Yes.<br />
C: Okay guys, thanks a lot for this very<br />
cool interview! It was fun to meet you.<br />
You are definitely one of the most promising<br />
young acts of the whole scene! So<br />
never stop the madness!<br />
We won’t! Thanks for the interview. Looking<br />
forward to reading a review of our NEXT album<br />
here on AGM.<strong>com</strong>!
UMBAH<br />
The Tech-Grind Anti-Band Aesthetic<br />
By Suleiman<br />
Finally here is an interview with the insanity<br />
that is Umbah aka Cal Scott. This man is<br />
single handily pushing industrial-cyber extreme<br />
metal into new and strange realms<br />
with each new release, all without proper<br />
distribution. Therefore he remains very much<br />
a true underground phenomena, not to mention<br />
<strong>com</strong>pletely DIY in action and philosophy.<br />
So open your ears, eyes and mind to the<br />
sound of the beyond.<br />
When did you start mangling the axe<br />
(playing guitar)?<br />
I was 15 and picked up a homemade shark<br />
fin.<br />
What were the main forces behind Necrosanct's<br />
break-up?<br />
The rhythm guitarist left then we carried on<br />
for a while as a 3 piece but it had lost its<br />
momentum so it just wound up.<br />
What was the original idea behind Umbah's<br />
inception?<br />
After recording some riff ideas to mates drum<br />
machine I just thought that is a cool thing to<br />
do. So I got a 4 track and just started. It was<br />
different from being in a band, it was more<br />
rewarding. With every new track I discovered<br />
I could do something better and different,<br />
things that a real band couldn't do. So the<br />
idea behind it was to see where that could go.<br />
I was and still am very curious to find out.<br />
Inspirations for Umbah?<br />
92<br />
All the mysteries, <strong>com</strong>plexities and weirdness<br />
and insanity of life.<br />
What convinced you to go the DIY route,<br />
instead of the standard studio/label contract<br />
and distribution shebang?<br />
Never had money for studio time for Umbah<br />
so the default route is DIY. Anyway I prefer<br />
recording alone when I have a good head on.<br />
Of course having a label and distribution<br />
would be great, cause more people would<br />
listen.<br />
Who is / are the primary influence(s) in<br />
your guitar playing?<br />
Originally inspired by the old death metal<br />
scene, but when started listening to guys like<br />
King Crimson and Mahavishnu it opened my<br />
eyes to other awesome styles.<br />
Your all time favourite bands and artists?<br />
So many including Cynic, Meshuggah, Suffocation,<br />
Gorguts, Ulver, Roni Size and some<br />
weird classical shit as well.<br />
Your current play list favorites?<br />
Monstrosity, Dillinger Escape Plan, Origin,<br />
Morbid Angel.<br />
What does Umbah recording rig consist<br />
of?<br />
I have been using a Shark fin guitar, and now
have the old bass guitar from Microcosm...<br />
cheers Ben. Also a fantastic Digitech<br />
GSP2101 guitar preamp. But have been experimenting<br />
with some GuitarRig for the last<br />
few tracks. I used a Rode NT2 mic for vocals<br />
on most Umbah tracks.<br />
Always record with AcidPro these days. I<br />
used it since V1 now its on V6 so I know it<br />
inside out, its got rewire capabilities so now I<br />
can run softsynths and drum software inside<br />
Acid, a true symbiosis. And the various fx<br />
<strong>com</strong>e from either plug-ins or a rather fine<br />
Chaos Pad II.<br />
Is playing live ever going to be an option<br />
with Umbah?<br />
That would be total dream... can you imagine.<br />
If I could find the right drummer and bassist<br />
I would love to, but so far not been that lucky.<br />
Where do the gothic overtones in Umbah<br />
<strong>com</strong>e from i.e. is Bauhaus or Killing Joke<br />
responsible for inspiring some of this?<br />
Not sure really cause I never had much<br />
gothic in my collection, Tristania are good,<br />
and I liked some of The Fields of Nephlim<br />
stuff (the cover of Elysium does weird things<br />
to my head), and also had a cool Killing joke<br />
tape once.<br />
What does the future hold for Umbah?<br />
... a journey into new worlds, imagine what it<br />
will sound like in 10 years time, I guess I<br />
have to continue or we'll never find out.<br />
Any chance of more conventional distribution,<br />
because this sound deserves to<br />
be heard by as many as possible?<br />
Err.. Its something I have not really looked<br />
into yet, and I do no promotion/distribution<br />
so I guess its no surprise Umbah is a <strong>com</strong>plete<br />
unknown.<br />
What is the idea behind Microcosm and<br />
are their any other projects underway?<br />
Microcosm was a 3 piece group back in the<br />
mid nineties, I played guitar and did vocals.<br />
It was one of those cool rare vibes, we played<br />
with no rules. Did some gigs and after one<br />
93<br />
demo we moved to different places so it finished.<br />
Live stuff is always a laugh so I always have<br />
side projects with mates, at the moment I<br />
play drums in a more psychedelic band and<br />
play guitar for a local hardcore band. Also<br />
engineer some demos each year for local<br />
bands for a bit of fun.<br />
What is your view of the current metal<br />
scene and the future?<br />
There are always a lot of bands I keep discovering<br />
fresh music and don’t see that ever<br />
changing.<br />
Last but not least the ever helpful Cal has<br />
uploaded the <strong>com</strong>plete Umbah discography of<br />
the last 10 years in mp3 format on his website.<br />
Run now to the site http://www.umbah.co.uk/<br />
to get the goodies.<br />
This is music to disintegrate in hyperspace,<br />
and it’s yours now for FREE.<br />
Truly an icon making music for art's sake.<br />
Respect.<br />
AVANTGARDE METAL<br />
RECOMMENDATION:<br />
13 exquisitely weird albums of<br />
Cal Scott's<br />
UMBAH<br />
DOWNLOAD FOR FREE at<br />
http://www.umbah.co.uk
BRACHIALILLUMINATOR<br />
Communicate As If It Was 1899.<br />
By Jonny Lignano<br />
Coincidentally Bozkovich, the mastermind of<br />
Brachialilluminator and executor of the<br />
Mighty himself and Sgt. Lignano were<br />
working for the National Austrian Post<br />
this summer. Whilst he was working<br />
in a small post office somewhere in<br />
Vienna, I was dutiful working in a<br />
small post office in Kötschach-Mauten<br />
[don't bother looking that up, it is<br />
between the middle of nowhere and the end<br />
of the world].<br />
Whilst work itself was boring [as hell, for the<br />
Satanist readers among you] for both of us,<br />
we were in <strong>com</strong>munication-heaven and able<br />
to (mis)use the available resources without<br />
knowledge of any superiors [besides the<br />
Mightiest, of course]. Before we started what<br />
might be known in 'The Great Book of Music<br />
History' as the first "telegram-interview", we<br />
sent a sheer enormous amount of telegrams<br />
between our two offices. The one I remembered<br />
most was his telegram,<br />
citing the entire lyrics of Frank<br />
Zappa's 'Valley girl' in an envelope<br />
that played some<br />
Dadaistic electroclash when<br />
opened.<br />
In case you wondered: telegrams<br />
are still in use, and yes, they are awfully<br />
expensive for puny non-post officeworkers.<br />
Fortunately we did not have to<br />
morse the questions and answers back and<br />
forth, these days there is machinery that<br />
does the real work.<br />
So after excessively<br />
testing we used telegrams<br />
to make this<br />
interview. Occasionally<br />
we sent each<br />
other images via the<br />
teleprinter (funniest<br />
day with the teleprinter<br />
was, when we<br />
sent each other all the<br />
national flags of all<br />
the UN-countries).<br />
What you are about<br />
to read is a collection<br />
of the best telegramdialogues<br />
that were<br />
sent between June<br />
15th 2007 and July 26th 2007. To enhance<br />
readability I left out all the technical yada<br />
yada that ac<strong>com</strong>panies this technology from<br />
the centuries that brought you trains,<br />
Nietzsche, electricity, world war I and II,<br />
Snickers, Ghadaffi and Dr. Who.<br />
94<br />
Lignano: Please give me three adjectives and<br />
two nouns to 'Melt Banana'.<br />
Bozkovich: great. great. greater. Favorite.<br />
Band.<br />
Lignano: Did you ever play a fruit at the<br />
orchestra?<br />
Bozkovich: No. But if I was allowed to, I<br />
would like to play mashed potatoes.<br />
Lignano: Are you playing a Kramer guitar?<br />
Bozkovich: Sure. Heavy as Heavy <strong>Metal</strong> can<br />
be (in the 80s, at least!).<br />
Lignano: How many guitars do you have?<br />
Bozkovich: Including the basses and the<br />
mandolin - five.<br />
Lignano: Was your<br />
song "Liberia" influenced<br />
by Michael<br />
Jacksons "Liberian<br />
Girl"?<br />
Bozkovich: More by<br />
a Liberian girl I<br />
used to know.<br />
Lignano: Can you<br />
send me an image<br />
of that Liberian girl<br />
over the teleprinter?<br />
Bozkovich: No, but<br />
I can send you an<br />
image of "Sons of southern parkness".<br />
Lignano: There is this awesome part in "06 -<br />
Dept. of Psychonautics/New World Order"<br />
where you sing "I think you are brainwashed"<br />
forever, do you have any idea what the M.<br />
might have wanted to tell the world with<br />
that?<br />
Bozkovich: Actually it's "Brainwashed but<br />
never dried" - the state of many humans<br />
before the Dept. of Psychonautics started its<br />
work.<br />
Lignano: Oh, I must have misheard.
Lignano: Were you ever not allowed to enter<br />
former Yugoslavia?<br />
Bozkovich: I was not allowed to enter former<br />
Yugoslavia once. That must have been in<br />
1993. Had to go back to Budapest to get a<br />
Visa. They didn't like Austrians and Germans<br />
too much at that time - all of them were sent<br />
back. The Japanese who were with us got<br />
their visa on the spot.<br />
Lignano: Did you play there?<br />
Bozkovich: No, I have never been in the Anti-<br />
Nowhere League.<br />
Lignano: But you did play in/with Malignom,<br />
Mandragora, Die Leber Vs. Screaming Sisters,<br />
When Yuppies Go To Hell, Spiess und<br />
Schwarz and Gebrüder Göd ft. Stefan Weber.<br />
Bozkovich: Yes.<br />
Lignano: When did Falco leave<br />
Brachialilluminator?<br />
Bozkovich: This must have been<br />
when he decided to work with<br />
Wickerl Adam.<br />
Lignano: Are you tattooed?<br />
Bozkovich: I don't have tattoos.<br />
Lignano: Are there people with<br />
Brachialilluminator-tattoos?<br />
Bozkovich: I haven't seen any<br />
so far. But I like the idea. I<br />
once found a "Brachialilluminator"-song<br />
on a "Soukuss-<br />
International" site. So anything<br />
can happen.<br />
Lignano: Do you still have the<br />
link for that site?<br />
Bozkovich: Can't find it now. It was a Russian<br />
site. Might have gone offline.<br />
Lignano: Tell me more about your poem<br />
indonesian teddy bear.<br />
Bozkovich: It developed when I was in Indonesia<br />
(surprise!). Actually it was three times<br />
longer but I had to delete the most obvious<br />
parts.<br />
Lignano: So most of your lyrics are written<br />
while being abroad?<br />
95<br />
Bozkovich: I often get inspired while being<br />
abroad. For the rest of the lyrics, nowadays,<br />
they are forced out. I mean, I find a topic<br />
and then I force myself to write down my<br />
thoughts on that topic within ten or twenty<br />
minutes. I wrote many more lyrics in my<br />
punk-phase. Most of them were useless,<br />
anyway. My last lyrical inspiration in Austria<br />
turned out to be<strong>com</strong>e "Hackln is fian Oasch"<br />
["Working sucks balls"; transl. lig].<br />
Lignano: That was on your first release 2001?<br />
Bozkovich: First CD release - yes.<br />
Lignano: Would you like to tour Japan?<br />
Bozkovich: Screaming teenagers, expensive<br />
food, drunken office people and maybe meeting<br />
Melt Banana<br />
or Ex-Girl or The<br />
Ruins? No question...<br />
Lignano: This<br />
was actually just<br />
a test question<br />
whether you are<br />
real musicians,<br />
because all real<br />
musicians want<br />
to tour Japan.<br />
Lignano: What<br />
are the travel<br />
plans for the next album?<br />
Bozkovich: I suppose the next album will deal<br />
with health. Bodily or spiritual health. Details<br />
have still to be confirmed with the Mightiest.<br />
If it were meant to deal with spiritual<br />
health, it would of course be<strong>com</strong>e collaboration<br />
with the Dept. of Psychonautics.<br />
Lignano: You are singing about six departments<br />
on "new world order", is this<br />
all there is, departmentwise?<br />
Bozkovich: These are the departments<br />
that should most necessarily be known by<br />
the citizens. Of course there are other<br />
ones, as well. You can't run a whole "New<br />
World Order" with only six departments.<br />
But the Mightiest tries to keep the government<br />
slim. Not like in (former, but it is<br />
still known as) Malawi, where they have<br />
54 ministers.<br />
Lignano: Are you ready for the famous<br />
avantgarde-metal.<strong>com</strong> word rap? Rules: I<br />
give you one (or maximum two, or maxmaximum<br />
three) words and you must<br />
answer with one, maximum two or maxmaximum<br />
three words.<br />
Bozkovich: Shoot!<br />
Lignano: Peter Gabriel Bozkovich: Geneses.<br />
Games.<br />
Lignano: Star Trek<br />
Bozkovich: Ears. Black woman.<br />
Lignano: Jochen Rindt<br />
Bozkovich: Austrian!!!! Death.<br />
Lignano: Columbo<br />
Bozkovich: Mad magazine.
Lignano: Klaus Eberhartinger<br />
Bozkovich: Dance star.<br />
Lignano: Joschka Fischer<br />
Bozkovich: Brutal youth.<br />
Lignano: Slayer<br />
Bozkovich: offended easily<br />
Lignano: Loddar Matthäus<br />
Bozkovich: -<br />
Lignano: Los Lobos<br />
Bozkovich: Espanol. Don't know.<br />
Lignano: Ephraim Kishon<br />
Bozkovich: Funny. Racist.<br />
Lignano: Beer<br />
Bozkovich: Great. Motörhead.<br />
Lignano: Elvis Presley<br />
Bozkovich: Dead.<br />
Lignano: Fritz the cat<br />
Bozkovich: Pornographic. Hells angels.<br />
Lignano: Perfect!<br />
Bozkovich: More than good.<br />
Lignano: I assume you have seen Gwar live -<br />
what was your preferred distance to the<br />
stage when seeing/hearing them "perform"?<br />
Bozkovich: About<br />
15 meter [~15<br />
feet] - far<br />
enough for not<br />
getting overrun<br />
by the new<strong>com</strong>ers<br />
when the<br />
blood is spilled<br />
the first time but<br />
still near enough<br />
to find it funny.<br />
Lignano: Do you<br />
still have cloth<br />
with Gwarbloodstains?<br />
Bozkovich: That's<br />
a great joke of theirs. They sell expensive<br />
white t-shirts for people to get them stained<br />
during the concert. But the colour is risible...<br />
Lignano: Did you buy one?<br />
Bozkovich: Haha, nope.<br />
Lignano: In what relationship stands the M.<br />
and Gwar?<br />
Bozkovich: I have seen a documentary on<br />
"shock rock" once. There the Mentors told the<br />
audience that they are real and Gwar is just<br />
show. So I suppose, in neither.<br />
Lignano: Is he pointing to the Mightiest?<br />
Bozkovich: The Mightiest is really very political.<br />
Before this interview I never thought of<br />
him being to do with religion. No, I don't<br />
think he cares about that stuff.<br />
Lignano: So the M. is rather materialistic and<br />
aural?<br />
Bozkovich: Materialistic sure. My job is to get<br />
the aural message done; I suppose he has<br />
other employees for dealing with different<br />
sensual areas. But I don't ask too many<br />
questions.<br />
Lignano: Who is your favourite porn star?<br />
96<br />
Bozkovich: If Geri<br />
Halliwell were one, I'd<br />
say - her.<br />
Lignano: What is your<br />
favourite figure in<br />
chess?<br />
Bozkovich: Magma.<br />
Lignano: Huh?<br />
Bozkovich: I am listening<br />
to them right now.<br />
"De Futura" from the album "Üdü Wüdü".<br />
Predecessors of the Mightiest - or Brachialilluminator,<br />
I'm not quite sure if they were the<br />
masters or the means.<br />
Lignano: Oh, those. Sorry for my lack of musical<br />
knowledge!<br />
Lignano: What is your favourite song by<br />
Morrissey/The Smiths?<br />
Bozkovich: Sorry for my lack of musical<br />
knowledge!<br />
Lignano: Who is your favourite author?<br />
Bozkovich: R.A.Wilson, Crowley, Kapuscinski,<br />
Ken saro Wiwa.<br />
Lignano: The Unabomber?<br />
Bozkovich: I think<br />
that’s Kazcynski.<br />
Lignano: Oh. True<br />
that.<br />
Lignano: What's your<br />
favourite Manifesto?<br />
Bozkovich: Probably<br />
the Roxy Music album. Although I don't fancy<br />
them too much...<br />
Lignano: Do you own the well-famous vinylsampler<br />
"Wiener Blutrausch" from 1979?<br />
Bozkovich: Unfortunately<br />
I only have it on<br />
MC. I had never been<br />
willing to pay 500-1000<br />
(Austrian) Schillings or<br />
more for one record.<br />
Lignano: I think even<br />
more...<br />
Bozkovich: At that price I'd rather buy a car<br />
than an album.<br />
Lignano: Or hookers!<br />
Bozkovich: Even better.
Lignano: What's the most offensive thing in<br />
this picture?<br />
Bozkovich: Offensive? I don't know. Where<br />
do you <strong>com</strong>e up with that stuff?<br />
Lignano: Post-office-boredom. Most of the<br />
stuff floats in the interweb. Some in my head.<br />
This might be easier:<br />
- Do you think he listens to <strong>Avantgarde</strong><br />
<strong>Metal</strong>?<br />
Bozkovich: I think he prefers Jello Biafra.<br />
97<br />
Lignano: Are you aware that your domain<br />
name brachialilluminator.<strong>com</strong> will expire at<br />
the end of august 2007? For how much would<br />
you sell it?<br />
Bozkovich: I get frequently reminded by the<br />
"domain registry of America" or what ever<br />
the name of these suckers is. A warning to<br />
everybody.<br />
Lignano: Do you think that "Diplomatie ist die<br />
Fortsetzung von Krieg mit anderen Mitteln" or<br />
that "Krieg ist die Fortsetzung von Diplomatie<br />
mit anderen Mitteln"?<br />
Bozkovich: "Fußball ist die Fortsetzung von<br />
Politik mit anderen Mitteln". Or the other way<br />
round, can't remember. Actually there once<br />
has been a war cause of a football match<br />
(see Kapuscinski, Richard. The Soccer War.<br />
Translated William Brand. London: Granta<br />
Books, 1990).<br />
Lignano: Why should our dear readers rush<br />
to www.brachialilluminator.<strong>com</strong> and not to<br />
www.niddl.<strong>com</strong> after reading this interview to<br />
buy CD´s?<br />
Bozkovich: Because there's gonna be a relaunch<br />
of the Brachialilluminator site as soon<br />
as the further projects get into shape.<br />
Lignano: I think Niddl and Brachialilluminator<br />
could produce great stuff as Niddlilluminator.<br />
Bozkovich: Brachianiddluminator.<br />
Lignano: Would you like to write a review on<br />
a niddl CD for avantgarde-metal.<strong>com</strong>?<br />
Bozkovich: Definitely. But I would need the<br />
CD first.<br />
Lignano: Pure Awesomeness! I will organise a<br />
niddl album for you.<br />
Bozkovich: It will be my pleasure.<br />
~~~<br />
The whole telegram interview (/I imitate<br />
Bugs Bunny voice: "Remember kids, you've<br />
seen it first here on avantgarde-metal.<strong>com</strong>!")<br />
was a whole new working experience for me;<br />
and please don't tell it to those boys.
ABSTRUSE<br />
Transgressing The Veiled Substants<br />
By aVoid<br />
Greek duo Abstruse - now reduced by 50% -<br />
is one of the strangest entities I've <strong>com</strong>e<br />
across so far since the genesis of this site.<br />
Enthralled by their hallucinating singularity<br />
and wicked cerebral <strong>com</strong>positions, I had no<br />
other choice but to make first contact and<br />
explore deep into the Universe that is Abstruse...<br />
Good day to You sir(s), and thank You<br />
very much for agreeing to do this interview.<br />
Abstruse is for most readers - me<br />
included - a very new name. Tell us a bit<br />
about this entity. Which musicians does<br />
it contain? When and where and how<br />
and why did Abstruse begin?<br />
Substant: Abstruse was created in 2002. I,<br />
Substant, and Veiler were the duo on the first<br />
unreleased demo ''Neuronal Paths’’ (2003)<br />
and on the recent one, ''Transgression''. We<br />
started this project as a mean to materialize<br />
obscure, mysterious or eerie if you wish,<br />
musical ideas, and it all happened in a suburb<br />
of Athens. The musicians that have helped as<br />
so far are all drummers with a specialization<br />
to different styles of music: Kostas Daskalias<br />
(Jazz-swing), Bill (Prog-rock, metal) and<br />
Shapeshifter (Extreme metal). Now Veiler is<br />
no longer involved in the project and it became<br />
a one man band (temporarily?).<br />
As I wrote in my review of<br />
Transgression, you have pretty<br />
bold ambitions. You succeed<br />
none the less to truly transform<br />
your ideas into music. What is<br />
the ultimate goal of your<br />
musicianship? What <strong>com</strong>pelled<br />
you to <strong>com</strong>bine these elements<br />
(the visuals, especially)?<br />
Speaking for the future I would like<br />
to explore and expand the orderbased<br />
system that I am working on<br />
and also -something that we started<br />
from ''Transgression'' - to work on<br />
the analogical relationships between<br />
different senses such as visual to<br />
sound <strong>com</strong>binations to odourproducing<br />
smokes, lights etc. This<br />
holistic approach is a part of<br />
Abstruse's philosophy. It may also<br />
bring to mind some works of<br />
Kandinsky back in the 1900's. Also<br />
the gestalt theory gives some hints<br />
about how does this 'work'. There is<br />
also a hope to give new air to<br />
98<br />
breathe to these relationships by a program<br />
(working on) that decodes motion properties<br />
into sound properties.<br />
You are definitely very skilled musicians.<br />
What background do you have as musicians,<br />
conservatories or autodidacts?<br />
And for your visual artworks, do you<br />
have any formal training? Tell us about<br />
the "Secret Order" part of your website,<br />
where the interested can find enlightenment<br />
in the obscurity of your tonality...<br />
(As a musician and musicology student I<br />
found this particularly interesting.) Is<br />
the "Majestic scale" your own invention?<br />
Basically we are autodidacts. Although, I am<br />
very interested in studying the 20th century<br />
and contemporary music. Thus a minor in<br />
music back in the university along with some<br />
good courses and ''extracurricular'' books<br />
really helped. For the visual part now Veiler<br />
founded his own forms<br />
in digital art and he is<br />
still studying graphic<br />
design. My specialization<br />
back in the<br />
university was film<br />
studies with two senior<br />
projects in Video Art.<br />
Now for the secret<br />
order part...It speaks<br />
about.uhm..orders!<br />
These are patterns of<br />
intervals or motifs that<br />
are used in Abstruse's<br />
music and represent<br />
different musical<br />
characters to give a<br />
short description.<br />
Order also is a musical<br />
language that counts<br />
intervals as digits<br />
(such as semitones)<br />
thus departing from<br />
conventional scores.
The most important thing about them is that<br />
you can see very clearly the numerical relationships<br />
of the intervals with the characters<br />
produced and thus construct new ones by<br />
<strong>com</strong>bining their properties. Also the patterns<br />
have an identity on their own without the<br />
need to refer to modes or scales.<br />
Majestic scale is the order of [1-3-2-1-3-2]<br />
series (counting in semitones from the root<br />
note and then from the next one). In a way<br />
it's Abstruse' invention though to tell everything<br />
it can be derived from the diminished<br />
scale (half-tone, tone...), but there is an effort<br />
for a 'tonal majestic' system that uses<br />
hierarchical relationships between the notes<br />
such as in major or minor systems.<br />
Do you use all the methods of Schönberg’s<br />
Twelve Tone System - inversions,<br />
retrograde, etc? What other methods of<br />
modernist <strong>com</strong>position do you use?<br />
In reality the most 'Schoenbergian song' that<br />
uses the techniques, including a retrograde in<br />
vocals, is 'Avid Saith', one that was not <strong>com</strong>plete<br />
in ‘Transgression’s demo release. (It<br />
can be heard on MySpace) Moreover 'Alliance<br />
Optimum' or others partly have to do something<br />
with the techniques but rather with the<br />
not full use of the series or the rules of<br />
Schoenberg. 'Entropy. In Order' as its title<br />
implies is aleatoric or random music that later<br />
was put to pieces together or ordered with a<br />
conscious effort. The lyrics here too are what<br />
is known as automatic writing (surrealism).<br />
Many different orders, modes and a wholetone<br />
coda, in 'Neuronal Forest' which has an<br />
unmetrical rhythm and together with the<br />
whole-tone arpeggios or [-4-2-6-] orders give<br />
a sense of floatation... 'submerge' as the<br />
theme opening phrase provokes.<br />
There is also a need for new methods to be<br />
found... Such as the new possibility of the<br />
'float scale'. This one uses virtually every<br />
possible frequency-sound and in order to be<br />
systematized and thus to be functional is<br />
taking ratios from other forms of art. For<br />
99<br />
example color ratios or geometrical ratios<br />
make sound frequencies and new harmonies<br />
are breaking into music, but this time from<br />
outer artistic forms.<br />
You let digitalized programmed parts of<br />
your <strong>com</strong>positions interact with analogue<br />
parts that are "really played";<br />
what is the reason for this and what effect<br />
does it have on the music? Do you<br />
reach the desired effects?<br />
Well, the main idea is that ''it's all an illusion''<br />
referring to the conventional <strong>com</strong>mon reality.<br />
By <strong>com</strong>bining live-played drums with drummachines<br />
or human played guitars with programmed<br />
ones in a way that it is not easy to<br />
<strong>com</strong>prehend (also a definition of abstruse).<br />
What it is real and what is artificial is not<br />
easy to distinguish and sometimes the artificial<br />
is confused for the real one and the opposite.<br />
But, man, what the hell does it mean<br />
for something to be natural or artificial? I<br />
believe that is the human intervener that<br />
decides for that. The desired effects were<br />
mostly reached in 'Transgression'... but for<br />
future projects maybe other ways will be<br />
useful.<br />
What have the reactions been to you<br />
rather <strong>com</strong>pelling and difficult <strong>com</strong>positions?<br />
From critics (like me), labels and<br />
ordinary listeners? The <strong>com</strong>plexity you<br />
describe above might be hard to grasp<br />
for someone who haven't studied musicology<br />
at University level; how important<br />
do you think understanding the cerebral<br />
aspects of Abstruse is to truly enjoy your<br />
works?<br />
The reactions so far are varied as expected.<br />
Some critics were very interested and made<br />
very positive reviews and also asked for interviews<br />
while there were a few that were<br />
totally negative as they could not 'digest'
either our peculiar instrumentation or the<br />
<strong>com</strong>plexity of our music. So far a Greek label<br />
was interested to distribute some stuff for<br />
free (promotion), and labels such as <strong>Metal</strong><br />
Blade answered saying that 'you have some<br />
very strong points, but the style you play is<br />
not what we are interested right now'. I think<br />
the problem here is to find the right label that<br />
is willing to take more risks. We got very<br />
good feedback from MySpace listeners, some<br />
played songs of ours into their pages or<br />
asked for the demo. I liked the fact that people<br />
from different backgrounds grasped our<br />
music.<br />
Now about the <strong>com</strong>plexity of the music I believe<br />
that it is well balanced between straight<br />
riffs to more chaotic ones in a way that is not<br />
demanding for the ordinary listener. This is<br />
also strengthened by the fact that most of<br />
the people gave attention to the mood that is<br />
created and not so much to the techniques or<br />
the forms. Though many songs have to be<br />
heard several times to be 'absorbed' and<br />
maybe celebrated.<br />
Both you and Veiler were in a band<br />
called SHADES OF DARKNESS. What became<br />
of it? Do you have any projects<br />
(music or other arts) beside Abstruse<br />
that one should be aware of?<br />
100<br />
This is a funny story from our teenage years.<br />
Back then we have formed a band with another<br />
guy that knew me and Veiler, and we<br />
got to know each other from him. We realized<br />
that we had similar views then, by having<br />
black metal influences at that period and by<br />
preferring dark melodies. Thus, we started<br />
something that would produce only one written<br />
song, not very aptly named:<br />
D.U.C.O.T.O.C. (dark underground cells of<br />
tormention of Christians). These teen age<br />
years... I remember them and they seem so<br />
fucking funny with their naive ness and their<br />
primitive expression of opposition. Veiler has<br />
his own project band under his name and I<br />
have a project that is intended to be more<br />
psychedelic: 'The Netherealm' (yes, some<br />
diminished influences are actually from Mortal<br />
Kombat!). Also, I do research in the Media<br />
Technology field for finding new ways of artistic<br />
expression or <strong>com</strong>binations of different<br />
already established forms.<br />
What general musical background do<br />
you have - did you pick up a guitar as a<br />
teenager playing metal riffs, later to discover<br />
the magnificence of the last two<br />
centuries of art music? Or the other way<br />
around?<br />
As a teenager I was more into the dark metal<br />
stuff, so I bought a BC Rich Warlock guitar, I<br />
plugged it into the amp and started playing<br />
whatever was <strong>com</strong>ing out of my head, trying<br />
to play as many different fret <strong>com</strong>binations<br />
that I could imagine. We both though never<br />
tried to make a cover or learn big parts from<br />
other bands in the genre. Maybe there was so<br />
much a need for a personal expression. After<br />
the narrow teenage years passed, new musical<br />
horizons opened: electronic music, 20th<br />
century classical and contemporary, flamenco<br />
and whatever seemed to cling to Abstruse<br />
was taken in a thorough account. The need<br />
for creating personal means of expression<br />
and ones own associations indeed was<br />
strengthened by these influences, too.<br />
What subjects do your lyrics touch? How<br />
do they relate to the name of the band<br />
(a pretty un<strong>com</strong>mon word synonymous<br />
with, correct me if I'm wrong, "obscure"<br />
or "hidden") and the overall theme of<br />
your creations? Does the visuals relate<br />
to the general mood or message of the<br />
songs?<br />
Basically Abstruse' lyrics are united by a concept<br />
that will always be there: The need of<br />
finding these weapons that will release the<br />
human animal from its bounds. Several styles<br />
of writing to produce that are used, as humans<br />
use different forms of writing to express<br />
their entities. Scientific writing for clarity<br />
and method, symbols to bring on relations
from their unconscious, surreal automated<br />
writing and bizarre cohesions and raw angry<br />
words filled with the desire to wake up as the<br />
value of freedom is one's consecutive alertness.<br />
Sometimes coded words are used to<br />
force someone to study the hidden relations<br />
between these phenomenally unrelated literary<br />
worlds. Everything is related to that in<br />
Abstruse' concept: photos, visuals and any<br />
means of the human experience, to present<br />
that reality is not one single picture but has<br />
many different shades. And there are shades<br />
that are yet unknown to us, beyond the limits<br />
of a sleeping-decepted consciousness.<br />
What's up with the scorpions?<br />
I believe you don't mean the band right? Ha!<br />
Ha! OK. There is a song on 'Transgression'<br />
which is called 'Brontoscorpion' and it belongs<br />
to Veiler. By regarding his very interest in the<br />
Evolution theory, this song is a symbol of<br />
power and by using the magnificent characteristics<br />
of this ancient monster. That it’s<br />
'seeds strive till nowadays', the symbolism is<br />
accented more.<br />
101<br />
What does the future hold for Abstruse?<br />
Releasing albums, staying independent<br />
and underground... live performances? I<br />
can see how the latter would be quite a<br />
spectacle, given you holistic views on<br />
your art (no sense left untouched!).<br />
Several concepts are planned for the future.<br />
There is a chance that this will be under a<br />
new name but if this happens it will be announced<br />
under the Abstruse MySpace. Would<br />
like to stay underground but under a sympathetic<br />
label and the live is of course a very<br />
seducing option (as already some festivals<br />
wanted to include Abstruse in their program),<br />
but is one that has to be considered after all<br />
previous issues are resolved.<br />
I hope everything works your and Abstruse's<br />
way. Thank you a thousand<br />
times for this very interesting interview.<br />
Stay bizarre, to the Death!
RETROSPECTION 2007<br />
For summaries and conclusions there’s no better time than the cold month of December. It is also<br />
the half-birthday of the <strong>Avantgarde</strong>-<strong>Metal</strong> website. This panoramic survey's aim is to bring in mind<br />
again the albums and events of the passing year. Maybe we feel the absence of a homogenous line,<br />
when judging and defining this year's musical products. After all we had new<strong>com</strong>ers and veteran<br />
bands from other 'scenes' that came into second being with the element of surprise. We also had<br />
veteran bands of the so-called underground that conquered us once again.<br />
In some way, the yield is eclectic. Of course, maybe it's too hasty to crown this musical-inspired<br />
gathering as a 'sub-genre' or 'scene', as confirmed in the ongoing debate on our website’s forum.<br />
Where the substance of the new albums is <strong>com</strong>ing from, lies in the eyes of the beholder / definer /<br />
musicologist. It is quite impossible to find an agreement about what avant-garde metal is. We are<br />
in an environment which leans on definitions of all sorts. A consensus about albums is impossible.<br />
Yet, we can point to some key albums that were most important for our website’s participants.<br />
In spite of that, many of this year's albums (and the ones that I've lend my ears to, in a personal<br />
perspective) can be characterized by innovativeness and also by the lack of it. Valor is the rooftop<br />
of the musical acts – and it is the heart and mind of this website.<br />
On the subject of people's choices, we can track down several names which reappear over and over<br />
again. The quite-new and much anticipated grandmaster ULVER’s "Shadows of the Sun", together<br />
with another anticipated album of their maniac neighbors DÖDHEIMSGARD - "Supervillain Outcast".<br />
Unlike the metallic sharpness of DHG, Ulver represent a group of bands that are “metal-havebeens",<br />
but still manage to win over the “scene". Bands like ELEND and their absolute masterpiece<br />
"A World in their Screams" or THEE MALDOROR COLLECTIVE with "Pilot" reflect the very unique<br />
blend of innovativeness and valor that I was talking about. What about bands like SLEEPYTIME<br />
GORILLA MUSEUM and "In Glorious Times" or MANES' "How the World Came to an End", with<br />
lighter metallic edges, but oh-so-very innovative minds? Art-metal jive continues with HELLA's<br />
"There's no 666 in outer space".<br />
In this 'scene', all is all. And indeed, we had much of it this time around: from the blackish depths<br />
rose two ancient, yet shaped anew giants – MAYHEM and ABIGOR. The first, tackling avant-garde<br />
borders some years ago, came back with a creation so deep and profound. It is avant-garde by<br />
itself. However, a very interesting album belongs to Abigor – a resurrection with new skin. "Fractal<br />
Possession" stroke many of the followers in amazement, breaking all known and unknown borders<br />
that were indeed a blast from the past. Moreover, the mysterious French duo DEATHSPELL OMEGA<br />
reached hazy and harsh dimensions with the new epos, "Fas - Ite, Maledicti, In Ignem Aeternvm".<br />
Other bands with black roots are SIGH that delivers us the great "Hangman's Hymn" and BLUT AUS<br />
NORD with their "Odinist".<br />
From nearby borders of more traditional-craved metal genres, creations like BERGRAVEN's "Dödsvisioner"<br />
and Swedish SHINING's "Halmstad" shook a little bit the acceptable avant-garde metal<br />
definitions. They are crafted with deep and bare emotions, sometimes more than the average<br />
metal-listener can tolerate.<br />
One can also find a fair amount of debut albums and other continuance releases, hailing from new<br />
and less-fresh bands. Starting with "The Green Walls" of BLACK ALBATROSS, Luxembourg's LE<br />
GRAND GUIGNOL with "The Great Maddening", the “Pelopia” EP from operatic Finns ABERRANT<br />
VASCULAR and the MCD "Nova Persei" from the French black-dreamers SMOHALLA.<br />
In a sad manner, this year two unique bands <strong>com</strong>e to their ends – French wackos CARNIVAL IN<br />
COAL and Hungary's GIRE (who released their debut earlier this year). It'll definitely be interesting<br />
to meet those band's refugees in other musical frames. Meanwhile, we still have audible memories.<br />
On account of all this, I reckon that 2007 was a hell of a year. Oh, and if I missed anyone, I deeply<br />
apologize – keeping all in mind isn't so easy.<br />
102<br />
Jobst
TOP 10<br />
AVANT-GARDE METAL ALBUMS 2007<br />
The year 2007 is almost <strong>com</strong>pleted. So we asked you, our honourable readers, to tell us<br />
what impressed you most this year. An overwhelming amount of answers came in. So<br />
thanks a lot to everybody who has sent us a list with your five favourite avant-garde<br />
metal albums of 2007!<br />
Each mentioning of an album has been given one point. These points were summed up to<br />
your overall ranking. And here are the final results:<br />
01. DøDHEIMSGARD - Supervillain Outcast<br />
02. ABIGOR - Fractal Possession<br />
03. ULVER - Shadows Of The Sun<br />
04. MAYHEM - Ordo Ad Chao<br />
05. BERGRAVEN – Dödsvisioner<br />
06. SIGH - Hangman´s Hymn<br />
07. SLEEPYTIME GORILLA MUSEUM - In Glorious Times<br />
08. MANES - How The World Came To An End<br />
09. DEATHSPELL OMEGA - Fas - Ite, Maledicti, In Ignem Aeternvm<br />
10. UNEXPECT - In A Flesh Aquarium<br />
On the top of the list there’s no surprise. ABIGOR and DøDHEIMSGARD are leading headto-head<br />
with a big distance to the rest of the field. For a long time it seemed that Abigor<br />
would win the race. But in the very end Dodheimsgard overtook them and landed on the<br />
peak.<br />
Astonishment arose about the third place. Ex avant-garde metal grand signors ULVER<br />
manage the legerdemain of reaching this high position although their masterpiece<br />
“Shadows of the Sun” doesn’t contain any metal elements at all. That’s really avantgarde!<br />
And the second surprise is UNEXPECT on position 10…because this album already<br />
has been released in August 2006. So it really seems to impress you a lot.<br />
We also would like to congratulate BERGRAVEN for shooting up to position 5 with their<br />
debut album “Dödsvisioner”. This promises much for the future.<br />
So thanks a lot once more to everybody who participated in this ranking! And here your<br />
favourite albums are again in the music of words:<br />
103
DøDHEIMSGARD - Supervillain<br />
Outcast<br />
(Moonfog, 2007 – Norway)<br />
Avantgenre: Supervillain <strong>Metal</strong> (Of Course!)<br />
This album only lost a pubic hair's width to being<br />
my favourite release in 2007 to ABIGOR's "Fractal<br />
Possession". Now, I could going on why this is so<br />
and what "Fractal Possession" has what "Supervillain<br />
Outcast" has not, but that would be unfair to<br />
this ambitioned, refreshing record which announces<br />
DØDHEIMSGARD's return after a long absence. And<br />
how they return: "Supervillain Outcast" is a weird,<br />
strange soundtrack to all perversions, abominations,<br />
anomalities; to everything disgusting, sick,<br />
and twisted the 21st century has to offer.<br />
While on "666 International" DØDHEIMSGARD's<br />
new style was something which did not quite went<br />
together well in my opinion (that is, the cold technical<br />
Black <strong>Metal</strong> with industrial elements), DØD-<br />
HEIMSGARD seem to have found the perfect way<br />
to put everything (and more) together to make it<br />
whole. "The Vile Delinquents" for example starts<br />
with heavy riffing, only to explode into an ultra-fast<br />
blastbeat with shredding guitars, catching breath in<br />
one of DØDHEIMSGARD's typical, groovy midtempo<br />
beats and ends in a blast-inferno; vocalist<br />
Kvohst spitting pure hate the whole song, sounding<br />
as if he would turn his throat inside-out to scream<br />
out what he has to. The next song, "Unaltered<br />
Beast"- weird beats, supported by rythmic guitars,<br />
strange electronic machine choirs and industrial<br />
elements. There is "Chrome Balaclava", an acapella<br />
choir song. "Ghostforce Soul Constrictor",<br />
straight Black <strong>Metal</strong> with a nearly danceable rhytmical<br />
intermezzo. "The Snuff Dreams Are Made Of",<br />
the second regular song surprises with a clearly<br />
arabian touch, introducing an instrument I do not<br />
know the name of but which has to be some kind<br />
of an arabian flute... "All Is Not Self", a calm, melodic<br />
song with clean vocals not unlike to what<br />
Kvohst did in . Melodies are mainly in the<br />
background, more supporting the drums and leaving<br />
room for the uncountable other instruments,<br />
soundscapes and effects which make this album<br />
sound like some hatefueled drug-trip.<br />
Nearly everyone should have guessed by now that<br />
the days of true Black <strong>Metal</strong> like on "Kronet Til<br />
Konge" are over for DØDHEIMSGARD, and for good.<br />
I do like good ol' Black <strong>Metal</strong> the way it should be,<br />
but even this narrow- minded (or maybe...) genre<br />
has arrived in the 21st century, as hordes like<br />
ABIGOR, MAYHEM, ABORYM, SECRETS OF THE<br />
MOON or DØDHEIMSGARD have proven successfully.<br />
And DØDHEIMSGARD have set a high stan-<br />
104<br />
dard for the next releases labeled as this "modern"<br />
style of Black <strong>Metal</strong>, that's for sure. If you like it<br />
straight, old school and raw, do yourself a favour<br />
and do NOT listen to this.<br />
Tentakel P.<br />
ABIGOR - Fractal Possession<br />
(End All Life Productions, 2007 - Austria)<br />
Avantgenre: Satan´s Technical Department<br />
"The music of ABIGOR is a weapon and shall haunt<br />
all those who try to discover something beautiful in<br />
it!" This statement is found on the "Nachthymnen"-<br />
Album; taking them literally I'll try to convert most<br />
of their outputs so far into- weapons. Here I go.<br />
Verwüstung / Invoke the Dark Age: A spiked club<br />
Orkblut - The Retaliation: Same as above<br />
Nachthymnen: A sharp falchion<br />
Opus IV: A rusty bastard sword<br />
Apokalypse: A war hammer<br />
Supreme Immortal Art: A pike<br />
Channeling the Quintessence of Satan: A guillotine<br />
Satanized: Absorbent cotton with chloroform<br />
Fractal Possession: ?<br />
Yes, finally it has arrived. A new ABIGOR- Album. I<br />
thought Reunions were only for members of aged<br />
norwegian Black-<strong>Metal</strong> Bands fearing to sink into<br />
oblivion, and I am glad I was wrong there. You<br />
can't speak of austrian BM without mentioning<br />
ABIGOR, and with this album they have proven<br />
that once again. I do not think that it is necessary<br />
to waste words on ABIGOR's biography here, for 1)<br />
it should be known to most of the metal scene<br />
anyway and 2) for the unlucky individuals that<br />
have missed this band so far may check the link to<br />
their site above.<br />
First, let's set things straight : This album has by<br />
far the best sound of all their albums and can easily<br />
withstand international <strong>com</strong>petition as well.<br />
Everything is clearly audible; from the eerie guitars<br />
to the once again hammering drums to the new<br />
singer to the fitting embedded soundeffects.<br />
Speaking of soundeffects: there are plenty of them<br />
here, and sometimes it's hard to tell if it is a real<br />
effect or some freaky guitar sound. Oh, and Thomas<br />
Tannenberger has returned to the drumchair<br />
of ABIGOR where he belongs. I don't think one has<br />
to argue about the skills of Moritz Neuner, who has<br />
played drums on "Satanized", but at least I had the<br />
feeling that his style did not fit ABIGOR too well.<br />
Now, hearing Thomas on this album there can be<br />
no doubt that his style is exactly what ABIGOR
needs. This guy was and is simply one of the most<br />
groovy, tightest and most dynamic Black-<strong>Metal</strong><br />
drummers, period. And the new singer A.R. takes<br />
ABIGORS vocals to a new level: Mostly snarling like<br />
MAYHEM's Attila, this guy manages clear, spoken<br />
passages as well as growling and screaming.<br />
The songs: A perfect symbiosis of the last two<br />
albums. The cold, precise riffing of "Channeling...";<br />
<strong>com</strong>bined with the strangeness of "Satanized". A<br />
good balance of infernal blasts, technical parts, and<br />
slow, melodic parts. Although you can't really <strong>com</strong>pare<br />
ABIGOR to them, the created atmosphere is<br />
not unlike the last two MAYHEM- outputs, to give<br />
you at least a diffuse picture. I'd have a hard time<br />
which songs I would re<strong>com</strong>mend to listen to, each<br />
one is unique but bears enough elements to recognize<br />
ABIGOR. My personal favourites are "Liberty<br />
Rises A Diagonal Flame" which brings up nostalgic<br />
memories of glorious "Nachthymnen"- days and<br />
"The Fire Syndrome" which, with an eerie, aggressive<br />
atmosphere, opens gates to demonplains<br />
somewhere beyond the stars and briefly, riffwise,<br />
mentions "Opus IV" (as does the start of "Injection<br />
Satan").<br />
ABIGOR have topped themselves here, easily<br />
achieving top grades in creativity and innovation.<br />
The songs are unbelievable <strong>com</strong>plex and at the<br />
same time straight; there is a huge amount of<br />
breaks, effects and samples involved, but what<br />
sounds like too much works out fine in the end. So,<br />
what weapon is "Fractal Possession"? I can't get<br />
the picture of a machine-armed with surgeon scalpells<br />
and killing with deadly precision- out of my<br />
head somehow...<br />
ULVER - Shadows Of The Sun<br />
(Jester Records, 2007 – Norway)<br />
Avantgenre: Sad Aurora Sublime<br />
Tentakel P.<br />
Soon after the release of the wildly colourful and<br />
adventurous Blood Inside, a record with which<br />
Ulver, it seems, unleashed all of their aural quirkiness<br />
through many shifting cut-up, eccentric postrock<br />
big band styles, silence came haunting us<br />
once again. What were they doing? Where would<br />
they go? Pro-evolutionist gentlemen Rygg, Sværen<br />
and Ylwizaker kept their growing new piece of art<br />
as secret as most natural arcanes; and then, not<br />
only have they invited along the way an Oslo String<br />
Quartet, a very talented trumpetist, a feedback<br />
guitar player, but also got on board none other<br />
than Christian Fennesz and Pamelia Kurstin respectively<br />
playing supplemental shimmer and theremin.<br />
105<br />
With such a diverse and impressive crew, everything<br />
was possibly imaginable!<br />
Now to the music. Well, Shadows Of The Sun is<br />
pure beauty and sadness enveloped in their most<br />
exquisite aural expressions. The whole album is a<br />
floating and etheric experience in itself, and a very<br />
delicate one at that, where you are invited to contemplate<br />
your own emotions being transformed<br />
into sound pixels. Stylistically, there are some of<br />
the most honest ambient tracks Ulver have ever<br />
<strong>com</strong>posed; for example, once you drown yourself<br />
deep into both Eos and Funebre, two of my favorite<br />
cuts here, it is hard not to get fascinated by the<br />
obscure, almost aquatic and submerging overall<br />
feeling at play. More beat-oriented parts also are<br />
present now and then throughout the record, and<br />
with a natural, acoustic drum sound, they somehow<br />
display cool, laid-back jazzy patterns as a<br />
backing-up for the more romantic, shadowy moments.<br />
At first, it may appear that Ulver have simply gone<br />
back to the more glitches and epic eras of their<br />
glorious past, but I don't think that back then,<br />
firstly - so much attention was given to sonic details,<br />
and secondly - neither was the atmosphere as<br />
sombre and deep as this. Indeed, as in everything<br />
else, experience allows you to go further and that's<br />
certainly what Ulver are doing with Shadows Of<br />
The Sun. To me, they are now up there with the<br />
masters of the piano-ambient genre, including<br />
inspiring artists such as the Fennesz & Sakamoto<br />
collaboration, Elegy, Machinefabriek and Circle<br />
(Miljard era).<br />
Only to give you an idea: microscopic particles are<br />
painting the smallest corners of the sound-picture,<br />
heartbreaking piano melodies subtly evolve around,<br />
Rygg's vocals are bass-heavy enough to sometimes<br />
leave a warm droning side-effect, drums are<br />
splashing against symphonic cuddles... I would say<br />
it takes a couple of listening sessions before the<br />
whole thing reveals itself to you. The textures are<br />
so rich, so involving, so warm in sound that they<br />
keep a perfect balance between the acoustic instruments<br />
versus the machine drones, and that<br />
must have been one of the hardest challenges to<br />
go through, while giving form to such a "<strong>com</strong>plete"<br />
record. Even a certain pop sensibility <strong>com</strong>es out of<br />
a few songs, but never in a cheesy way - this music<br />
is for sure honestly sad and beautiful, whereas<br />
it's not melodramatic and candy-pink at all. For<br />
example, they're covering Black Sabbath's Solitude<br />
and turn it into a most sensitive sweetness that I<br />
can't get enough of - my future is shrouded in dark<br />
wilderness - so sensual...<br />
Even though she's playing on only two songs, a<br />
special mention has to be made about thereminist<br />
Pamelia Kurstin, because she seriously creates<br />
amazingly flowing and real emotive passages - and<br />
I can only wish Ulver would have used her talent a<br />
little bit more. As a whole, the album, just like its<br />
cover representation, is one reflective, symphograndiose<br />
dusky affair, and the more I listen to it,<br />
the more it sends bio-vibrations down my primary<br />
and secondary peristaltic waveguts. Now how's<br />
that even only possible?<br />
Olivier Côté
MAYHEM - Ordo Ad Chao<br />
(Season Of Mist, 2007 – Norway / Hungary)<br />
Avantgenre: Abysmally Surging Blackest<br />
<strong>Metal</strong> Of Truest DEATH<br />
A whirling shapeless thing, clawing at you from the<br />
deepest pits and abysses of the human soul and<br />
the voids outside of our understanding… Scorched<br />
black tentacles with chainsaws attached shredding<br />
your mind… Dissonant chords strung over chaotic,<br />
aimless riffs, devoid of any kind of normal progression<br />
or musical shape... The hellhammers float<br />
around, disjointed rolls abruptly cutting off the<br />
crackling rumbling beats… (nowhere to be found is<br />
the trademark Hellhammer sound, fortunately, the<br />
percussion sound surprisingly acoustic.)<br />
The prodigal son Attila is the deranged scientist/sorcerer,<br />
who gazed a bit too long into the<br />
Abyss, seeing too many unspeakable things therein<br />
to regain his sanity… Tormented shouts turning<br />
into maddened laughter… From barytone proclamations<br />
of impending doom to ghastly inhuman<br />
squeals and howls to the deepest chants and<br />
growls from the maw of Nihil… Voices speaking of<br />
humankinds littleness against the forces of the<br />
universe; apocalyptic magick spells and mythological<br />
chaos-salutations... Praising the fall of civilisation<br />
in anti-religious misanthropy and exhaustion of<br />
grief and wrath... The guitarwork may be fierce<br />
and menacing, but this creation is still thoroughly<br />
vibrating with melancholy; like a saddened deity<br />
longing for warmth and understanding, only able to<br />
spread disease, turmoil and strife to the world in its<br />
desperation.<br />
After the clinical sound of its most recent predecessors,<br />
Ordo Ad Chao is draped in a filthy damp production,<br />
which may deter some listeners. To me,<br />
this is preferable, the production (by Mr. Knut<br />
Valle) forcing you to really listen and fall into the<br />
music. Not easily accesible, as extreme metal<br />
should be. For the first time in over ten years, can<br />
the Blasphemer step out of the ominous shadow<br />
that is the legacy of Euronymus; Ordo Ad Chao is a<br />
darkness so <strong>com</strong>plete and possessed that it can<br />
<strong>com</strong>pete with the swansong of the Prince of Darkness<br />
and Death. For the first time in many years<br />
can Mayhem truly claim their name and title. This<br />
is nothing but the True Mayhem.<br />
aVoid<br />
The anticipated and well publicized album harkening<br />
the return of Attila as the voice of Mayhem.<br />
Now although this is a band that firmly resides<br />
within the realm of Black <strong>Metal</strong> as oppossed to<br />
avantgarde, this is an album that takes a step in<br />
106<br />
every direction. Where Chimera (previous album)<br />
was a more straight forward (<strong>com</strong>paratively speaking)<br />
Norwegian styled Black <strong>Metal</strong> release, the<br />
aptly titled Ordo ad Chao could very well reside on<br />
the other end of the spectrum from its predecessor.<br />
What Chimera lacked in spirit and individualism,<br />
Ordo ad Chao makes up for with sheer daring and<br />
reckless abandon.<br />
The song structures and overall writing are audacious<br />
indeed, sounding like the members locked<br />
themselves in a room with their favorite hallucinogen,<br />
hit the record button, then played and wrote it<br />
all at once. Like a roller coaster to hell it dives and<br />
ascends with use of numerous stops and starts<br />
within many of the songs and no chorus' or conventional<br />
writing. It does not play like a collection<br />
of singular songs but more like one song split into<br />
parts, and when listening to the album on repeat it<br />
is sometimes hard to know which track you are on.<br />
It <strong>com</strong>piles aspects of the chaotic movement and<br />
technical prowess of Grand Declaration and fuses it<br />
with a kind of free flowing playing style, wrapped<br />
within the atmosphere and darkness of De Mysteriis.<br />
It is an evolutionary step forward into the<br />
primordial ooze from where they came. If the universe<br />
collapsed again and then a new earth formed<br />
this would be the soundtrack of such a neo-sphere.<br />
With Atilla back make no mistake this is not, as<br />
some may have hoped for, a repeat performance, a<br />
De Mysteriis Prt II. Atilla's voice is of course a<br />
trademark but on this album he brings more than<br />
that to the proverbial table. At times psychotic but<br />
always dynamic and dark, this is his Oscar performance<br />
as the narrator for Chaos. This is also a<br />
personae embraced in a live setting as his stage<br />
performance seems to be a perfect <strong>com</strong>pliment to<br />
the chaotic insanity of the music.<br />
The drumming is as expected from a drummer with<br />
a resume such as Hellhammer. His timing is tight<br />
but the playing is almost loose, more like a jam<br />
session than a studio recording. On his forum he<br />
stated that the drums are all natural except for the<br />
bass drum which had to be triggered in order to<br />
have the clarity when going 300 bpm (you read<br />
that right). It's no wonder that the American tour<br />
was cancelled due to his inability to perform, cause<br />
no one else could have done it.<br />
Apparently the bass was recorded by guitarist<br />
Blasphemer ostensibly in order to see his <strong>com</strong>plete<br />
vision to fruition.<br />
Now although a phenomenally written and performed<br />
album understandably some may be taken<br />
aback by the production and its very low muddled<br />
sound. That is to say that the mixing of the album<br />
is great but that the CD does not sound as if it was<br />
mastered, or at least not very well. So one can<br />
either enjoy it as it is presented, or turn the treble<br />
up on your listening format of choice, or <strong>download</strong><br />
a music editing program and turn up the treble on<br />
each individual track and then burn your newly remastered<br />
CD. Whichever method you choose this is<br />
a piece that dares you to take a step within and<br />
requires above all an open mind, a dark room, and<br />
if necessary, a mental enhancement of choice.<br />
MvH
BERGRAVEN - Dödsvisioner<br />
(Hydra Head Records, 2007 – Sweden)<br />
Avantgenre: Dante's Cold Inferno<br />
When one begins his departure towards death, this<br />
journey is bound to open in deep silence, of reckonings<br />
to <strong>com</strong>e. Cleaning mind and soul is highly<br />
necessary before diving into this faraway yet incredibly<br />
close realm. In this manner opens one of<br />
the best albums I've lend my ears to this year.<br />
First of all I'd like to stress out the point that this<br />
album isn’t "proper" avantgarde. It's original<br />
among the elusive genre called "dark metal". Alas,<br />
one can try hard to stuck the avantgarde needle<br />
and <strong>com</strong>e with dry hands, yet declare that what<br />
counts in this case are the feelings the music<br />
leaves behind. The borders Bergraven's music<br />
crosses on and off are not so <strong>com</strong>mon as one<br />
might think. I tend to believe that albums like<br />
these are not so <strong>com</strong>mon, when the music clings to<br />
the heart and refuses to go, when it begs for life –<br />
the listener's life. This music is located in the wide<br />
term of a man's creation, that dares to be deep,<br />
sometimes deep like one sees in it the first times of<br />
revealing music.<br />
"Dödsvisioner" ("Visions of death" – thanks to<br />
aVoid for the translations) is an excellent example<br />
of the dark metal genre – drizzling from some elite<br />
genres into an ice-cold mélange. Instead of rat's<br />
eyes, there's mid-tempo doom metal. Bat's wings<br />
are removed to the benefit of Swedish black metal<br />
aesthetics, preferring melodies over irrational<br />
speed. Bergraven, as I see it, is a part of a group<br />
of metal acts (who nourish on the weak definition<br />
of 'dark metal') such as Shining, Forgotten Tomb or<br />
even Void of Silence, who imbibe their main point<br />
from the monumental Katatonia album "Brave<br />
murder day". Bergraven is not different according<br />
to the experience of carving unforgettable emotions<br />
within few songs. Also song structures and<br />
distortion settings go as far as this peak of metal.<br />
The first glance into the second album of the oneman<br />
act of Pär Gustafsson is located at the cover.<br />
This meticulous and elegant photograph gives an<br />
adequate shade to the world introduced throughout<br />
the music – a gothic and gloomy hall with closed<br />
doors. In a quick gaze one can almost miss a person<br />
(of unknown gender) lying on its back, its spirit<br />
already gone underneath the soil. On the left side,<br />
there's a man peeking, one cannot tell if it’s a<br />
painting on the wall or the inspector of the underworld<br />
domain assuring departure. This is the very<br />
start of a deathly journey.<br />
The opening track, "Döende" ("dying"), is a real<br />
spirit-blower. After the silent beginning hazy voices<br />
107<br />
burst slowly out of nowhere, under the listener's<br />
feet, standing on a firm soil, underneath lays only<br />
netherworld. When the music <strong>com</strong>es forth, after<br />
almost three minutes of serenity killer silence, the<br />
listener finds out that all this exposition was actually<br />
an elevator. He's already deep down. The<br />
fleshy guitars bite, with them <strong>com</strong>e synths in the<br />
costume of bells. As the name implores this is the<br />
ultimate dying experience according to Bergraven.<br />
From this moment on the listener be<strong>com</strong>es Dante,<br />
soaring over different netherworld rooms, all with<br />
the same texture based on the beautiful <strong>com</strong>bination<br />
between the rough distortion and the clean<br />
strumming, and giving right away the creeping<br />
shuddering. And yet, each room is another vision<br />
of the same phenomena. The clean guitars, hauntingly<br />
hurting, illustrate the void, this absolute vacuum<br />
of the underworld domain. Simultaneously,<br />
the distorted angry guitars remind that in the same<br />
domain there isn’t necessarily blood, fire and sulfur<br />
feasts, but loneliness and stagnation. Basing on the<br />
genre outfits, the <strong>com</strong>bination 'clean-harsh' isn’t<br />
that overwhelming with surprises. However, Bergraven<br />
manage to load unto this much clever riffs<br />
and movements, keeping the songs with lack of<br />
boredom and moreover, high chills.<br />
Another enthralled song is "Ondkall", tearing apart<br />
the 'clean-harsh' duo and zigzagging between<br />
these torn entities, eloquently speaking the language<br />
of the dead. The utter zenith of the song is<br />
at the last minute, when a shivering yet ordinary<br />
solo hits a clean riff, struggling over with a sneaky<br />
bass line, showing once again that the "heaviness"<br />
on which we fed isn't all distortion grounds. This<br />
plain solo is spine-tingling and terrifying with its<br />
simplicity. It surely left its mark on me. This is no<br />
peak of innovation, but god-darn-it, this is so<br />
touching and exciting. This is everything I need:<br />
emotion and atmosphere, smart musicianship with<br />
a twist and the ever-rare ability to leave a taste for<br />
more.<br />
This is an album of long songs (accept the second<br />
one, a short instrumental track), curving through<br />
themselves, jumping from softness to harshness<br />
and vice-versa, from a bewitching melody to another.<br />
The production is tight – every instrument<br />
gets maximum resonance and only Pär's voice is<br />
<strong>com</strong>ing into being every song anew, may it be as<br />
its spearhead or as it’s a second trumpet for the<br />
guitars. In between barrages of sad guitars, piercing<br />
through long ambience sequels, echo this<br />
bluntly gentleness and be<strong>com</strong>e a pause from the<br />
netherworld journey – there are benches for resting<br />
along the troubled way.<br />
Bergraven outline his death cycle – the first song<br />
keeps mid-tempo throughout its end and be<strong>com</strong>es<br />
slow until fading out in the last song, "Döende (an<br />
Avslutning)" ("dying (an ending)"), saying all begins<br />
and ends (of course) in death. This track is a<br />
proper ending for the album, a snail-slow and<br />
treading echo of the beginning, setting fire to cold<br />
flames. In this sounds crawling, the album dies into<br />
the silence after, of the listener yet again breathing<br />
deep inside and his searching eyes – what now?<br />
For me, it's quite easy – I'm clicking the "repeat"<br />
button.<br />
Jobst
SIGH - Hangman´s Hymn<br />
(Osmose Productions, 2007 – Japan)<br />
Avantgenre: Mirror <strong>Avantgarde</strong><br />
I am going to spoil my own punchline this time by<br />
telling you why I label this release “Mirror <strong>Avantgarde</strong>”:<br />
Because it is not <strong>Avantgarde</strong>. And by that,<br />
it is so much <strong>Avantgarde</strong> it hurts. Why is that? If<br />
you have a bunch of <strong>Avantgarde</strong>-bands, and one of<br />
these bands decides to leave <strong>Avantgarde</strong> behind,<br />
to be<strong>com</strong>e (or to return to something) straighter<br />
and simpler, this band does something that the<br />
other bands do not. And that pushes it avant the<br />
garde of <strong>Avantgarde</strong>. Understood? No? Well, me<br />
neither. But what I do understand is, that SIGH<br />
have delivered their most straightforward, their<br />
less experimental, their (maybe) simplest album<br />
yet. Luckily it is not, by far not, their worst.<br />
Bad tongues (may they forever suffer in heaven)<br />
allege SIGH to be just a japanese CRADLE OF<br />
FILTH-clone. Although it would seem that these<br />
foul-mouths haven´t heard anything else from<br />
SIGH, I can see why someone thinks that way. Not<br />
unlike COF with their last album, SIGH have returned<br />
to their very roots - pure Heavy <strong>Metal</strong>.<br />
You´ll find riffs on “Hangman´s Hymn” that could<br />
have easily managed their way onto an IRON<br />
MAIDEN-album (listen to “In Devil's Arms” to see<br />
what I mean). Another band <strong>com</strong>es to mind if I had<br />
to <strong>com</strong>pare SIGH´s latest album to something, and<br />
that is THERION (from which they have “borrowed”<br />
a riff, undoubtedly - <strong>com</strong>pare the beginning of<br />
“Inked in Blood” to THERION´s “Wine of Aluqah”<br />
from “Vovin”).<br />
Due to the nature of this album (which was meant<br />
to represent a hommage to german opera <strong>com</strong>posers<br />
of the romantic era) you will find choirs and<br />
orchestration, the other side of the coin that is<br />
“Hangman´s hymn”. Straightforward <strong>Metal</strong> and<br />
classic <strong>com</strong>posers - a mix which makes this album<br />
sound epic and devastating. The new drummer<br />
Junichi Harashima (Satoshi Fujinami has taken<br />
over the bass) adds a more aggressive and faster<br />
note to SIGH than ever before (his blastbeats get<br />
near the 200 bpm-mark, which is not exactly fast<br />
when <strong>com</strong>pared to some swedish blast-orgies, but<br />
which is pushing the monumental <strong>com</strong>positions<br />
forward), although he refrains from doing more<br />
than the standard 4/4 Thrash pattern as much as<br />
the previous drummer did.<br />
Though I was a bit disappointed by hardly getting<br />
any experimental parts on “Hangman´s Hymn” this<br />
time, especially after the ingenious “Gallows Gallery”;<br />
after a few rotations<br />
108<br />
I didn´t care anymore. Great orchestrated and<br />
<strong>com</strong>posed Heavy <strong>Metal</strong> with Mirai´s unmistakeable<br />
voice, catchy melodies with an aura of grandeur<br />
and the new (female) member Mikannibal on sax<br />
and backing vocals is enough for me to put<br />
“Hangman´s Hymn” into my top five for this year.<br />
Just keep in mind, if you are looking for something<br />
overly experimental and avantgardish, maybe this<br />
time you should look another way.<br />
P.S.: In case anyone wonders why I list SIGH in<br />
“Top 5 albums beyond the border 2007” and not in<br />
“Top 5 avant-garde metal albums 2007” - that is<br />
how I feel “Hangman´s Hymn” should be placed.<br />
Yet this was often labeled as <strong>Avantgarde</strong> elsewhere,<br />
so we decided to put it up as such. For this album<br />
somewhere between <strong>Avantgarde</strong>/not <strong>Avantgarde</strong> I<br />
suggest that everyone should judge for him/herself.<br />
But then it always <strong>com</strong>es down to that, doesn’t it?<br />
Tentakel P.<br />
SLEEPYTIME GORILLA MUSEUM -<br />
In Glorious Times<br />
(The End Records, 2007 – USA)<br />
Avantgenre: Grim Street Theater<br />
"In Glorious Times" churns, slithers, and grinds its<br />
way through a psychotic array of moods and<br />
sounds, with songs ranging from anguished paranoia<br />
to grimly amusing misanthropy. The experimental<br />
rock/metal collective Sleepytime Gorilla<br />
Museum carved out a niche over the years playing<br />
extremely heavy and spastic hard rock and metal<br />
with a vaguely jazzy dissonance straight out of<br />
Henry Cow and the Art Bears. Here, they're a little<br />
more spacious: less dense, more textured than<br />
bludgeoning.<br />
The songwriting is still unpredictable- torchy pop<br />
next to rattling percussive passages, death metal<br />
violence riding shotgun with noise rock, found<br />
sounds and morbid violin solos hovering over jagged<br />
RIO rhythms, swinging New Orleans dirges<br />
paired with groove metal breakdowns by way of<br />
Primus and Meshuggah- but the overall thrust is a<br />
little more accessible than prior work, more melodic<br />
and less heavy handed. As in the past, the<br />
whole band contributes vocals, percussion, and fret<br />
time on an array of specialized instruments, making<br />
it a team effort, with <strong>com</strong>munal <strong>com</strong>position<br />
and performance taking center stage and all emphasis<br />
on workmanship.<br />
As usual, the overriding tone of the work is grim<br />
and morbid, indigenous American Gothic with a
shade of forlorn immigrant misery, a kind of re<br />
imagining of 19th urban malaise for the age of<br />
gentrification. With a more diverse array of moods<br />
and a crystal clear production, "In Glorious Times"<br />
is a good introduction point for anyone interested<br />
in exploring this band's strangely quixotic sound.<br />
James Slone<br />
MANES - How The World Came To<br />
An End<br />
(Candlelight Records, 2007 – Norway)<br />
Avantgenre: Dark Triphiphop<br />
Nobody wants the truth. Imagine a dark cave<br />
where water runs down the walls and the neon<br />
light reflects some people doing weird things on<br />
weird electric machinery including a Commodore<br />
64 (or 128) equiped with a Final Cartridge, digital<br />
Super 8 projectors and gadgetery like that. Image<br />
there's no people but Manes in their cave. Imagine<br />
there were no wars. Imagine John Lennon posing<br />
for Nike and doing photoshoots in the central park,<br />
posing with his exclusive John-Lennon-Ipod (see<br />
figure 1) and talking about yoda, yo-yos, generals,<br />
generals in wars and wars in general.<br />
Imagine a world full of sounds that were produced<br />
by Manes exclusivly. Nobody wants the truth.<br />
Imagine crossing the street, where the street lights<br />
inform the pedestrian with spanish children tunes<br />
and when a car breaks it sounds like a hammer<br />
that is dropped onto a pillow. Imagine a world full<br />
of images that were produced by Manes exclusivly.<br />
Imagine crossing the street where there are no<br />
zebra crossings but real zebras fixed to the traffic<br />
light post, cars that don't look like cars but srac<br />
and drive backwards. Imagine there was no song<br />
called 'imagine'.<br />
The beeps in #5 at ~3:00 are the greatest beeps I<br />
heard in a long time. One of the dreams of a reviewer<br />
is that one of his sentences is used by the<br />
record <strong>com</strong>pany in an ad for the album, similarly to<br />
those weird slogans at the end of movie previews,<br />
you know the "Remarkable. Boldly great. The New<br />
York Times." So I will try my best to find some<br />
slogans for this album that can be used by their<br />
label for advertising:<br />
"This is the 'Srgt. Pepper' of the 21st century.",<br />
"Good. Better. Manes.", "This is sex for the ear.",<br />
"Iresistible. Without the spelling mistakes.", "Beyond<br />
beyondness.", "If we had 2005 one would<br />
think we had 2007.", "Imagine nobody wants the<br />
truth."<br />
109<br />
Jonny Lignano<br />
DEATHSPELL OMEGA - Fas - Ite,<br />
Maledicti, In Ignem Aeternvm<br />
(Norma Evangelium Diaboli, 2007 – France/<br />
Finland)<br />
Avantgenre: Sophisticated Black <strong>Metal</strong> Art<br />
This album has been in my possession for a mere<br />
week, and I am the first to admit that this review is<br />
premature. A <strong>com</strong>plexity like this need months of<br />
digestion before realization of it's immensity is<br />
<strong>com</strong>plete. But I must write this.<br />
This is the second part of Deathspell Omega's unspeakable<br />
trinity, beginning in 2004 with masterpiece<br />
Si Monumentum Requires, Circumspice, followed<br />
by appendices Kénôse, "Mass Grave Aesthetics"<br />
and "Diabolus Absconditus" (the latter two<br />
songs from split releases). Roughly translated (my<br />
Latin skills are puerile and laughable at best), the<br />
title means "The Divine Order - Thus Cursed, in<br />
Eternal Flames/Forever Burning". The chaos of the<br />
forerunners is here taken to a new level of extremity<br />
unheard; the sulphuric violence is breathtaking.<br />
These French diabolists have opened a gate, and<br />
through it came a satanic Beast screaming and<br />
throbbing, in spite and fury spastically clawing and<br />
tearing at the light. Then, as it's abysmal seizures<br />
have ended, a calm besetts your mind, letting you<br />
breath and contemplate upon the aural rape you<br />
just suffered. Deep in the ambient silence, a choir<br />
and it's orchestra is silently incinerated... listen<br />
closely, and hear the beast breath... It awakens,<br />
dances with you, mid-pacing through disharmonic<br />
ballrooms in the deepest circles of Hell, in disjointed<br />
improvisations... Only to plunge back into<br />
rabiate madness, raping you over and over again,<br />
tearing your flesh and soul into shreds and dust.
Fas tells of how mankind is doomed to Perdition<br />
and Damnation from the beginning, and it is much<br />
more personal and poetic than it's disputational<br />
precursors. Mikko Aspa's sore growls sound older<br />
and harsher than before, and yes, the Lord of all<br />
Perdition and Madness is truly speaking through<br />
him, as He is working through the always so obscure<br />
musicians. They are truly possessed, and<br />
"evil" satanists like Watain are but a candle in<br />
sunshine to these orthodox theologists. The music,<br />
in it's <strong>com</strong>positional trinity, is more <strong>com</strong>plex than<br />
ever, tonally and rhythmically closer to Alfred<br />
Schnittke, Ved Buens Ende and Gorguts than Darkthrone.<br />
In this flurry of blastbeats, orchestral samples<br />
and disruptive dissonances there is a profound<br />
darkness I cannot describe. It must not only be<br />
heard, but felt and realized. This is more than<br />
metal, whatever prefix you choose. This is art.<br />
Note: The official translation of 'Fas: Ite, ...' is "By<br />
divine law, go, you cursed, into the eternal fire!". I<br />
wasn't that far off. (aV., 2007-09-17)<br />
aVoid<br />
UNEXPECT - In A Flesh Aquarium<br />
(The End Records, 2006 – Canada)<br />
Avantgenre: Hyper-technical <strong>Metal</strong> Gang<br />
Bang<br />
In A Flesh Aquarium, the most emblematic album<br />
of the seven-piece musical, theatrical avant-garde<br />
group named unexpecT came out last year. The<br />
music of these freaks cannot be <strong>com</strong>pared to any<br />
other band. It is "coreless" - meaning that there<br />
isn't a main musical style. Considering that they<br />
mixed at least 15! different musical styles together<br />
on their infamous 2006 album, the "corelessness"<br />
isn't surprising, but the music is.<br />
These weirdos manage to blend black metal with<br />
tango, death metal with jazz, circus music with<br />
ambient, medieval music with trip-hop. They have<br />
three vocalists who are able to sing, growl, shout in<br />
super wide ranges, from soprano to high shrieks<br />
and deep growls, from glorious choirs to narrative<br />
speaking and clean singing... and much more. Most<br />
of the time their vocal style is more similar to a<br />
crazy, psychotic theatrical presentation than a<br />
simple performance.<br />
The structure of a heavy metal song is just as easy<br />
as 1+1=2. Verse, bridge, chorus, verse, bridge,<br />
chorus, solo, chorus, chorus. However in the case<br />
of unexpecT the situation isn't that easy, sometimes<br />
1+1 happens to be 3. You will feel your brain<br />
110<br />
aching and you will hit on "stop", screaming blue<br />
murder to those who created this. But before you<br />
do something you will definitely regret, please calm<br />
down and listen to it ten times more. What will be<br />
your first word after it? I wouldn't be surprised if<br />
you would say "fascinating" or "stunning". But it's<br />
much more. The band incorporates the law of large<br />
numbers which gives their music a unique feature:<br />
you won't ever find this album boring. To sum it<br />
up: you have to listen to a song at least ten times<br />
to feel the same vibrancy of the rhythm you feel<br />
while listening to heavy metal. Then you would<br />
probably be bored. The only problem is that you<br />
are a limited human with limited qualities and<br />
cannot adapt a one hour long song. So what remains<br />
is pure excitement during each single listening.<br />
These guys are (the) true masters of avantgarde<br />
music. With their astounding, outstanding<br />
creativity, technicality and <strong>com</strong>plexity they surely<br />
have brought something abstract, surreal, "ultraplanar"<br />
to this world. The lyrics are exclusively<br />
written in metaphors by syriaK (except "The<br />
Shiver" by CaotH) and every listener will find different<br />
truth in them for himself.<br />
This release should (must) change every listener’s<br />
way of thinking about the whole world. This album<br />
shows that there is a new, differing angle to look<br />
on things, on life, on music, on feelings, on impressions,<br />
on relationships, on past, on future, on your<br />
role in the universe. Hope I'm not the only one<br />
who's having this album as a cornerstone of his life<br />
and musical taste. This flawless masterpiece is a<br />
must in the collection of those who consider themselves<br />
as open-minded avantgardists.<br />
revon<br />
Listening to this album for the first time brought a<br />
totally new experience to me. I had to switch it off<br />
after two minutes to avoid a massive brain overload.<br />
I just needed a little rest before diving totally<br />
into the raging whirlwinds of mania. Such an excessive<br />
Gang Bang of all <strong>Metal</strong> genres wildly crisscross<br />
I have never heard before. Those Canadian<br />
bastards describe themselves as "black, death,<br />
(*)core, symphonic, progressive and melodic<br />
metal; classical, operatic, medieval, goth, electro,<br />
ambient, psychotic, noise and circus music with an<br />
occasional jazzy touch.” And this is really a litotes,<br />
because it’s much more.<br />
There are lots of technical virtuosos out there in<br />
the <strong>Metal</strong> scene. But just very, very few are able to<br />
make catchy, atmospheric songs out of it. Unexpect<br />
manage it to play two different guitar-solos, a<br />
solo on a 9-string E-Bass (!), a violin-solo, a drumsolo<br />
and a duel of three different voices at the<br />
same time – and it still remains a catchy song!<br />
Unexpect definitely are masters in songwriting. And<br />
their Nomen est Omen. There are countless different<br />
parts in a song. And you never know what will<br />
happen in the next second. Furious staccato dismemberment<br />
with BM-Screams and DM-Growls<br />
follows calm ambient-sounds. Groovy <strong>Metal</strong>-riffs<br />
mix with dissonant Free-Jazz, proud Tango and<br />
epic Hit-Melodies. There are no limits! You have to<br />
hear it to believe it! Each second of this album is<br />
unpredictable and surprizing. If we had ratings,<br />
this would be a 11 out of 10.<br />
Chrystof
MORE COOL NEW<br />
AVANT-GARDE METAL ALBUMS<br />
AGALLOCH - Ashes Against The<br />
Grain<br />
(The End Records, 2007 – USA)<br />
Avantgenre: Naturally Epic Blackened <strong>Metal</strong><br />
With four years since their last release (not to<br />
include a few hard to get EP’s) this album sees<br />
them return reinvigorated and moving forward<br />
almost as if no time had passed. To a certain extent<br />
this album picks up where their previous efforts<br />
left off. By taking the blackened folk-metal<br />
from their first full length "Pale Folklore" and mixing<br />
it with the more acoustic oriented "The Mantle"<br />
this album is a perfect illustration of what exactly<br />
Agalloch is musically.<br />
The greatest disparity between this release and its<br />
predecessors lay in the mixing and mastering of<br />
the album. The guitars continue, as before, their<br />
interplay creating the musical foundation of the<br />
album, both mournful and uplifting. With the distorted<br />
guitars <strong>com</strong>ing across slightly heavier and<br />
more omnipresent in the mix, while the acoustics<br />
intertwine within and without to make up an overall<br />
full and fluid sound. However, the real strength of<br />
this recording derives from the driving power of the<br />
bass and drums that carry each song forward with<br />
a forcefulness of purpose (instrumental interludes<br />
excluded, of course). The bass being very low in<br />
frequency, but well mixed, provides this album<br />
with its heaviness and wall of sound, not <strong>com</strong>pletely<br />
found on the two previous full length releases.<br />
The black metal vocals are brought to the fore on<br />
much of this album, their raspy style giving it<br />
forcefulness and a smattering of angst while still<br />
keeping the overall mood of melancholia in its<br />
entirety. The clean vocals are again used to great<br />
effect, interweaving emotional emphasis into each<br />
sorrowful and exultant piece that one finds<br />
throughout this tapestry.<br />
This is an example of a band maturing without a<br />
loss of identity. A band who possesses an individualistic<br />
identity in an industry and world which is<br />
be<strong>com</strong>ing more a vacuum for musical individuality<br />
and personality every day.<br />
If you have not yet heard this band (one wonders<br />
why) then this would be a great place to start. For<br />
111<br />
those of you who have heard their previous efforts<br />
and do not yet own this, then by all means what<br />
are you waiting for, you will not be disappointed.<br />
AGHORA - Formless<br />
(Dobles Music, 2006 – USA)<br />
Avantgenre: Buddha Progressive<br />
MvH<br />
The first time that "Formless" collided with my ear<br />
drums I can't say I was impressed. As I listened<br />
the first time through the album I even reached the<br />
state of occasional disappointment and thought to<br />
myself: "There it is, the first negative review I'll<br />
have to write for avantgarde-metal.<strong>com</strong>." But by<br />
the time I listened to all the songs I began wondering:<br />
Did the band have a creative drain by replacing<br />
the rhythmic section? Did Santiago Dobles<br />
invest so much creativity in "Aghora" that he had<br />
no more to offer? How <strong>com</strong>es that seven long years<br />
aren't enough to replenish your ressources? And<br />
how does that work with all the mind and body<br />
balancing activities he goes after with great dedication?<br />
Aren't those supposed to bring out more and<br />
more creativity? I concluded for myself that the<br />
answers lie in front of me and that I have to listen<br />
to this quite a few times before making my final<br />
personal judgement about it.<br />
My perseverance was well rewarded! It's not that<br />
"Formless" is more <strong>com</strong>plicated then its predecessor<br />
or that you have to access a new and higher<br />
level of spiritual enlightment in order to appreciate<br />
it. It just depends on what you expect from this<br />
follow up.<br />
I was quite surprised to hear that the metal dose<br />
has been noticably raised on this one! Don't let the<br />
Intro make a fool of you. "Aghora" started with a<br />
crunchy riff while "Formless" initiates its listener to<br />
the beating that is to <strong>com</strong>e by gentle psychedelic,<br />
indian tunes that will give you a truly wrong impression<br />
of the pace of the up<strong>com</strong>ing journey. It's<br />
not like the songs are now <strong>com</strong>pletely built around<br />
the concept of acoustic mass destruction but there<br />
is so much more of it now that I wondered where<br />
the calm interludes went to and when I will be<br />
allowed to breath. Well there are just better hidden
and distributed in a manner that gives the song a<br />
stronger live edge.<br />
I mainly liked "Aghora" fort the epic blasting like in<br />
"Satya". Now I got a whole lot more of it, but at<br />
first it sounded simpler to my ears which has unsettled<br />
me a bit. That impression was quickly dissipated<br />
by the time I lent the harmonies more attention<br />
and enjoyed the fact that the vocals were<br />
given more room to expand and carry the song in a<br />
more angelic manner.<br />
All in all I advise anyone who doesn't enjoy this<br />
album by its first listening to spend some time on it.<br />
Otherwise you are on your way to prive yourself of<br />
a truly enjoyable and fascinating album. Let's hope<br />
that it won't take another seven years fort he band<br />
in order to assemble the next, hopefully just as<br />
great, album.<br />
Trident<br />
BLUT AUS NORD - MoRT<br />
(Candlelight Records, 2006 – France)<br />
Avantgenre: Detuned Psychosis Black <strong>Metal</strong><br />
For a long time Blut Aus Nord have been darlings of<br />
the "true” black metal scene. Their productions<br />
have been raw. Their music and their lyrics have<br />
fulfilled every cliché. But one day Satan came to<br />
them with a special mission: "My dear disciples!<br />
Black metal has be<strong>com</strong>e a trend for kids. You have<br />
to invent a music even darker, scarier, much more<br />
evil than anything else! Drown them in fear,<br />
nightmare and psychosis! Take away their sanity,<br />
and then take away their souls!” And Blut Aus Nord<br />
got lunatic eyes and a frenzied smile. They took<br />
the frets out of their guitars. They erased all timecodes<br />
and bars out of their drum <strong>com</strong>puter. And<br />
they put all reverbs on ten. And Satan was proud<br />
and saw that it was evil!<br />
MoRT creates naked landscapes filled with bizarre<br />
sculptures of total death. It draws you down into<br />
the deepest spheres of rotting nightmares and<br />
skeletal delusion. Slowly your blood flows out from<br />
your veins. Your head begins to spin. You loose all<br />
orientation and sink down to the very bottom of<br />
bare existence.<br />
MoRT is so different from everything else you’ve<br />
ever heard before. It’s the purest essence of black<br />
metal and something <strong>com</strong>pletely different at the<br />
same time. The guitars are extremely detuned and<br />
cold. The raspy vocals are many miles away. The<br />
drums are drunken and meander slowly in their<br />
own vomit. And a blurred delirium covers all. Check<br />
112<br />
out this masterpiece from a parallel universe’s hell!<br />
You won’t be the same anymore!<br />
Chrystof<br />
BLUT AUS NORD - Odinist (The<br />
Destruction Of Reason By Illumination)<br />
(Appease Me Records, 2007 – France)<br />
Avantgenre: Liquid Black Drone <strong>Metal</strong><br />
Well first of all, I have to mention that I haven't<br />
been a die-hard black metal fanatic for a few years<br />
already, mostly because I believe it's not really an<br />
expanding genre anymore. But to every general<br />
law there always are at least a few exceptions, and<br />
indeed Blut Aus Nord ought to be mentionned here.<br />
Weirdly enough, I didn't know much of this band<br />
when I suddenly bought their new record out of a<br />
pure coincidence. As a matter of fact, I'll never<br />
regret doing that!<br />
It could be because black metal has now be<strong>com</strong>e<br />
out of my usual interest, it could be boiled down to<br />
the most honest fact that I've always enjoyed the<br />
strange emotional effects that both atonality and<br />
dissonance can induce me into, it could be that I<br />
love letting my mind drift out to imaginary floating<br />
soundscapes... Well, many reasons can explain<br />
every single human experience, but I believe that<br />
Odinist is an extremely well-done heavy<br />
voivodesque drone metal album. There, I said it!<br />
But why am I writing this? Because in every song<br />
presented here by Blut Aus Nord, I can clearly hear<br />
massive waves rising high and falling deep down<br />
only to recycle themselves again, and again, and<br />
again, in slow-motion lavas of sounds. In its entirety,<br />
the album is surfing on these kind of aural<br />
shores. Another good point to mention is that the<br />
vocals have almost been mixed within an enveloping<br />
ambient and noisy atmosphere which follows<br />
like a bio-plasmatic aura most of Odinist's <strong>com</strong>positions.<br />
They are inherent to the sonic textures and<br />
never in front of it.<br />
As an all, it's quite repetitive, sure, and almost<br />
linear and without any explicit dynamism, you're<br />
right about that - but I've got to claim that in this<br />
case, that's the whole point! I'm saying this because<br />
I know some people have been <strong>com</strong>plaining<br />
about how uneventful this album really is. But<br />
please listen through the subtle riffing mastery<br />
displayed here - there's so much atmosphere and<br />
feeling deep inside every note and at the heart of<br />
every tone. It's not about rythms, it's not about
technicalities, neither is it about blast beats and<br />
earth-shattering evil stormy passages. The guitars<br />
rather are fluid-like, heavy-foggy, crawling underneath<br />
while reaching out for the stars. When my<br />
roomate heard only a few moments of a song, his<br />
initial reaction was to mention how cool and laidback<br />
the guitarist seemed to be. Of course it's dark<br />
music, but in a relaxing, borderline somnolent and<br />
dreamy way, as if they wanted us to find some sort<br />
of a hidden beauty into apparent creepiness and<br />
fear.<br />
I don't really know how to explain this further other<br />
than by informing you that it sucked me in its spirals<br />
right within a few minutes of playing. Let me<br />
sum it up with only a few expressive words - mesmerizing,<br />
mysterious, stellar, eerie and magical.<br />
Yeah, I can only wish all black metal records could<br />
contain at least half the flowing e-motion that Blut<br />
Aus Nord have summoned here. Thanks for the<br />
massage, guys! I have been illuminated...<br />
Olivier Côté<br />
DOL AMMAD - Ocean Dynamics<br />
(Electronicartmetal Records, 2006 – Greece)<br />
Avantgenre: Electronic Art <strong>Metal</strong> Aquatic<br />
Space Opera<br />
When I looked at the album cover I first felt like a<br />
beaten dog, which then was slowly and carefully<br />
nosing the CD until realising it was a friend and not<br />
a foe.<br />
"Ocean Dynamics” is a continuous concept starting<br />
in outer space, represented by the powerful first<br />
four tracks of "Thalassa Dominion I-IV”. The journey<br />
moves on into the solar system and "Solarwinds”<br />
is tied on with fast and fantastic drums<br />
which really sound like solar winds. This is musically<br />
so amazingly well done, that you could distinguish<br />
between a storm and a wind. The wind here<br />
even carries the cries of dolphins into the atmosphere<br />
very softly. Further, continuing from "Descend”,<br />
descending to earth into "Lava” where the<br />
fire from the sun liquefies slowly, to then finally<br />
ending in the ocean (last three tracks). Here you<br />
can listen to more water sounds when you were<br />
missing them in the first parts.<br />
One has to listen to the entire album to develop an<br />
understanding of the whole idea musically as well<br />
as lyrically, because after several minutes of each<br />
song <strong>com</strong>pletely new parts appear in a sudden and<br />
make the album very fluctuating; with plenty of<br />
tempi and arrangements, sounds and partly differ-<br />
113<br />
ent styles of music, from Funk-Jazz to extreme<br />
Black <strong>Metal</strong>- like drums and percussions, mostly<br />
somewhere in between all these genres in the upand-mid-tempi.<br />
What makes this band unique is the <strong>com</strong>bination of<br />
<strong>Metal</strong> and 70's electronic music with distinctive<br />
synthesizer sounds similar to Jean Michel Jarre and<br />
Vangelis. It seems like the marriage of Berlin Love<br />
Parade with some Rock Festival. The <strong>Metal</strong> music<br />
to some extend reminds me of Luca Turilli and<br />
Rhapsody, certainly because of Alex Holzwarth<br />
(Drummer of Rhapsody of fire), who seemed to<br />
find asylum in this project with his characteristic<br />
way of drumming.<br />
The second cherry on the top constitutes the choir<br />
of 14 people (seven women and seven men). They<br />
represent the operatic bombast throughout the<br />
album and also "flow” with DC Cooper (Ex-Royal<br />
Hunt) in "Aquatic Majesty”. Therefore, "Ocean<br />
Dynamics” is the perfect symbiosis of electronic<br />
music, operatic music and <strong>Metal</strong>. It can be seen as<br />
a <strong>com</strong>plete art work with its wonderful orchestration,<br />
lyrics and also with its amazing cover art work<br />
that was designed totally coherent.<br />
You have to decide whether this is your cup of<br />
ocean dynamics or not. I find it to be a fantastical<br />
album, where ocean meets universe with a lot of<br />
atmosphere in between. All my thumbs, including<br />
big toes up!<br />
Katja Honeywine van de Barrel<br />
FURZE – UTD<br />
(Candlelight Records, 2007 – Norway)<br />
Avantgenre: Black Furzing <strong>Metal</strong><br />
"Furze" is the name of the Blade on the Reaper's<br />
scythe - the one and only trademark of the one<br />
and only Reaper, made "music". Woe J. Reaper,<br />
sole member of Furze, began back in 1996 (when<br />
black metal, according to the Reaper, died). HE is<br />
the only one who knows the Truth. UTD, which is<br />
the third Furze volume (excluding demos, a 7" and<br />
a 10"), is not an album but a split cd, with Furze<br />
and Furze. The two sides are called Beneath the<br />
Odd-Edge Sounds to the Twilight Contract of the<br />
Black Fascist and The Wealth of the Penetration in<br />
the Abstract Paradigmas of Satan (consider the<br />
taste of the titles, that is the taste of the Furze).<br />
Again taking up the black flame of metal from<br />
Trident Autocrat (2000), rather than the doomier<br />
aspects of Necromanzee Cogent (2003) - though
slowing down a couple of times - this is some violent<br />
stuff.<br />
What is? Harsh scrawny sound, horrifyingly necro,<br />
though not at all unprofessional and bedroomy but<br />
rather elaborate, like a mix of ULVER's Vargnatt<br />
and Nattens Madrigal. It is at many times a hard<br />
listen; at low volume in<strong>com</strong>prehensible, at high<br />
volume unbearable (especially if you're a cat, it<br />
seems), always confusing - I still don't get many<br />
parts of it, despite a dozen sit-throughs. Is this<br />
negative? For some, probably. Furze means many<br />
obstacles. But obstacles mean rewards for the<br />
persevering.<br />
UTD envelops several facets of black metal art (yes<br />
it is art). Spite and hateful, melancholy and solitude,<br />
fierce and in grief, tearing parts from the<br />
Reaper's soul and showing us, as someone put it.<br />
But still something you have NEVER heard before<br />
(yes, never heard before). Woe J. Reaper longs for<br />
the days when black metal was "alive" (1986-96),<br />
but takes black metal to strange places it has<br />
never seen before. Maniacal dancing of ghouls<br />
eating mushrooms and nasty witches with bad<br />
teeth boiling frogs and herbs into strange concoctions.<br />
The scary visions of a deranged mind drinking<br />
tea (the TEA is of UTMOST importance) and<br />
listening to BLACK SABBATH and HELLHAMMER,<br />
calming down after pounding Feeble Christian Cretins<br />
with a hammer from hell at a black Sabbath.<br />
Woe's vocals are... unsettling. Hysterical screams,<br />
retarded murmurs, ghastly whispers, the nasty<br />
drool of something wanting you really unwell - not<br />
satanic but folkloric and very old. Like a pissed-off<br />
little demon trapped in a rusty cage, or a ghost<br />
from the deepest pit of your soul (or from beyond)<br />
beckoning to you in a feverish jimsonweed-induced<br />
dream... What is also interesting and unusual: he<br />
actually PLAYS the bass, against all black metal<br />
traditions - and in a peculiar fashion too, moving<br />
about with a mind of its own (as does every instrument<br />
the Reaper molest). Furze is not selfconsciousness,<br />
not artsy pretensions, just the<br />
chaos of unhinged creativity and obsession with a<br />
non-intellectual dark side - raw black energy vibrating<br />
through the whole of the Reaper not because<br />
he WANTS to but because he HAS to. And<br />
it's quite mesmerizing too, the whole of the Entity<br />
of the Reaper - the Truth and the Blade. The Completeness<br />
of the Creations. Need. To. Be.<br />
Heard. ...and Seen and Smelt And Felt and Tasted.<br />
To Torture Them Beyond Death Is The Heaven<br />
They Deserve<br />
Shadowstench, Deathpace; we're on course!<br />
On the behalf of Eternal Pride; I shadowcast the<br />
Very Map of it<br />
[Note: The cover shown belongs to "Beneath...".<br />
The cover for "The Wealth" - appearantly painted<br />
by Woe's father in 1975 - is not for me to find<br />
online. And the Name of the Blade probably refers<br />
to the Plant, rather than the Gas, you Germans.]<br />
aVoid<br />
114<br />
HELLA - There's No 666 In Outer<br />
Space<br />
(Ipecac Recordings, 2007 – USA)<br />
Avantgenre: Post Thrash In Opposition<br />
From Sacramento, California, <strong>com</strong>es the everchanging<br />
art of a very daring band, I’m indeed<br />
speaking of Hella. Mind you, There’s no 666 in<br />
Outer Space, released on Patton’s Ipecac Recordings,<br />
was my first real exposure to their musical<br />
craft and already within the first listening session,<br />
I became utterly fascinated by the way these<br />
guys turn the most confrontational multi-tracks<br />
riffing ever into some of the catchiest art-metal<br />
tunes I’ve heard in a great while. Having two<br />
prominent guitarists and one loud-fingering bassist<br />
fighting against and with each others, if you carefully<br />
pick out all of the riffing elements one by one<br />
and in itself, everything is overly technical, deconstructed,<br />
meltingly abstract and therefore always<br />
on the borders of being just too much. You’ve<br />
probably heard, at least once, from one of these<br />
masturbatory jerky-proggy bands whose main<br />
concern is always to show off more, and more, and<br />
more, forgetting all about the rules of headbanging<br />
insanity. Well, that’s really not the case<br />
with Hella, please do not worry.<br />
Instead, the music here is warm in textures, deep<br />
in sound, and even within its last-minute changing<br />
patterns and structures, long build-ups of atmospheric<br />
climaxes can always surprise you. There’s<br />
also a certain feeling of blood-boiling urgency<br />
throughout the entire album’s duration: this is<br />
dangerous stuff, folks, no kidding. You’re holding a<br />
bomb in your head at each passing second. Call it<br />
post-thrash-jazz, I say whatever – this is a fucking<br />
intense ride!<br />
Every pretentious (or not) extreme jazzy metal<br />
drummer definitely has to hear Zach Hill behind his<br />
machine-gun bashing kit. This is what artful<br />
rhythm constructivism is all about. Even tighter<br />
than a blasting Czral on speed, this man is exploring<br />
a frenzied drumming style I had never heard<br />
prior to experiencing Hella’s unique approach. No<br />
typical blast beats nor double-bass attacks are to<br />
be found here; it’s just so much more extreme<br />
than that. Without such a solid backbone, I would<br />
even go as far as to say that Hella’s music couldn’t<br />
be that metal-oriented. Hill certainly is aggressive<br />
and groovy like none other.<br />
Nasal-filtered acid vocals are graciously layered all<br />
over the music, and let me tell you that singer<br />
Aaron Ross has an amazing palette of squealing<br />
throatings to spit forth. It really sounds as if
Megadeth’s very own Dave Mustaine came back to<br />
his old-school sessions of excessive cocaine snorting,<br />
while Voïvod’s Snake embarked upon an occult<br />
bathing into unknown liquefied planets, only to<br />
give the great sarcastic guru Jello Biafra an opportunity<br />
to make his critical madness shine through.<br />
And I’m serious here.<br />
Upon feeling concrete traces of an immense enthusiasm,<br />
I immediately started tracking down reviews<br />
on the web, but soon enough got turned off: most<br />
of them mentioned how crappy this new album is.<br />
Keep in mind that this is Hella’s first record as a full<br />
band, reconstructing from scratch, maybe without<br />
even knowing it, the whole metal genre. If 666<br />
represents, as a symbol, the sterile and limiting<br />
rules of a down-to-earth take on metal, and if<br />
outer space is the infinity of experimental possibilities,<br />
then I’ve got to admit that there’s no 666 at<br />
all in Hella’s quest for outer space. Bravo!<br />
Olivier Côté<br />
JESU - Conqueror<br />
(Hydra Head, 2007 – UK)<br />
Avantgenre: Love Inducing Drone Doom<br />
Who would have thought that one day a founding<br />
member of Napalm Death would create something<br />
so pleasant?<br />
Despite its tough metal title, "Conqueror" is actually<br />
<strong>com</strong>paratively subdued next to the bone crushing<br />
weight of the debut album and the wide open<br />
production of the "Silver" EP. Its lightness has less<br />
to do with any significant <strong>com</strong>positional choices<br />
and more to do with its softer production, though<br />
the songs are a little sparser and often catchier,<br />
leaning closer to the warmth of shoegaze and<br />
dream pop than the cold plodding heaviness of<br />
industrial doom.<br />
There are more vocals and songs contain actual<br />
choruses, though they're still winding epic affairs,<br />
perhaps more psychedelic and drug friendly than in<br />
the past. Consider the inspired "Mother Earth." The<br />
core of the song is recognizably doom metal, but<br />
the watery synths and waves of reverb and feedback,<br />
not to mention the dreamy lyrics, are pure<br />
acid dropping granola hippy ecstasy, but in a good<br />
way! It's the heaviest head music outside of Japan.<br />
"Mother Earth" is the best example, but every song<br />
on the album virtually pours over the listener,<br />
forming a warm, inviting cocoon of distortion and<br />
115<br />
love. Justin Broadrick might take exception, but<br />
this is very agreeable, very agreeable indeed.<br />
James Slone<br />
KAYO DOT - Dowsing Anemone<br />
With Copper Tongue<br />
(Robotic Empire, 2006 – USA)<br />
Avantgenre: Violinistic Naked/laced Disney<br />
Pop<br />
Have you ever listened to Laibach all day long and<br />
then tried to write an album review? Well I have,<br />
and this is what I heard thereafter. The album has<br />
got five windows that are between 7:44 and 18:00<br />
minutes:seconds long and use a lot of curtains<br />
(curtains in music are i.e. keyboards that stick to<br />
one or more tones for a very long time) that they<br />
successfully interrupted with raw guitars or violins,<br />
sometimes drums and a presumably male singer.<br />
Sometimes one of the musicians is a bit more angry<br />
than the other and then he or she gets his or<br />
her moment to express him or herself. I sometimes<br />
wish there was only one sex on the planet or single-sex-bands<br />
only because writing about bands<br />
would be way easier. On the other hand (I will trick<br />
you because I will not tell you what is in my<br />
unmentioned other hand) if there would be only<br />
one sex/genre in the world or single-sex-bands<br />
only, one would never have been able to enjoy<br />
those castrated opera singers or the fabulous<br />
Transvision Vamp (W-W-W-endy!).<br />
If I were asked if I preferred to eat, to drink or to<br />
listen to music for the rest of my life I would not<br />
only wonder who asked such a dumb question, but<br />
I would also respond that I would prefer to<br />
"LIEANK", 'a pen', which is, as you probably knew<br />
right from that moment which I marked with 'a<br />
pen', a mixture of the three verbs. If I were hungry<br />
or thirsty I would listen to this album all day long.<br />
If I were deaf I would put the album on my record<br />
player, cut off my nose in hope some waves would<br />
enter my head via those holes.<br />
Jonny Lignano
KEKAL - The Habit Of Fire<br />
(Whirlwind Records, 2007 – Indonesia)<br />
Avantgenre: Urban Avant-Garde <strong>Metal</strong><br />
This is vibrant interesting metal of a decidedly<br />
experimental nature. From the first track "The<br />
Gathering of Ants" it has you hooked. Ripping melodious<br />
but heavy guitar work <strong>com</strong>pliments a variety<br />
of rhythmic and vocal approaches all coated in<br />
an atmospheric sheen (benefit of background<br />
synths/samples as well as a great production). The<br />
sheer tonal arsenal at this band's disposal is an<br />
aural pleasure, especially coupled with song-writing<br />
(a concern often un-addressed by a lot of AGM).<br />
The second track features vocoder parts, adding to<br />
the decidedly unearthly ambience. Coupled with<br />
the growls and the progressive musicianship, there<br />
are shades of Cynic as well as later Septic Flesh<br />
here, without copying the sound of any one act.<br />
And what chops they have!! The axe-work is some<br />
of the tastiest I have heard in a while.<br />
Over the course of the album, the band's trademark<br />
be<strong>com</strong>es more clear: trippy guitar parts coupled<br />
with strange clean vocals, and very occasional<br />
industrial growls. "Manipulator Generals (Part I of<br />
Dictatorship), shows how far the band has progressed<br />
from their more traditional metal roots,<br />
with the haunting melodies and alternately eerie<br />
arpeggios and dissonant guitars moving forward on<br />
the backbone of samplers and drum machines as<br />
well as live percussion, going into totally bizarre illbient<br />
midway, and ending with a truly strange<br />
sludge-funk freak-out outro.<br />
Strangely the album gets spacier as it progresses.<br />
The lyrical and thematical content deals with the<br />
political and personal (as far as I could make-out).<br />
The eerie vocals couple with the heartfelt motifs to<br />
tell the tale. It is original (showing clearly a unique<br />
vision from a unique culture, closest reference<br />
being some of the more experimental Japanese<br />
metal outfits) and emotional (as exemplified by<br />
"Our Urban Industry Runs Monotonously"), making<br />
for a truly satisfying listen. The heavier more extreme<br />
metal elements are few and fluidly interspersed<br />
in a sea of musical vitality, the chord<br />
changes showing a jazzy flavour as indebted to<br />
70's fusion outfits as to 90's metal (check out "Part<br />
II of the Dictatorship"). In places it’s like a prog<br />
metal band that has matured enough to let go of<br />
the hair/shred metal retentiveness and reaching for<br />
the outer limits. The last 2 tracks round off the<br />
album with a serenity (the almost BM trip-hop of "A<br />
Real Life to Fear About") that can only be born of<br />
burning in discontent. In fact the closing epic (almost<br />
15 minutes) may molecularly re-arrange the<br />
awareness of the listener into an avant garde metal<br />
116<br />
revolutionary, what with its thematic gist and bizarre<br />
twists and turns.<br />
All in all, this is genius (a word used too easily, but<br />
here <strong>com</strong>pletely justified) and is on my personal<br />
top-ten list for 2007. And yeah, a big thanks to<br />
Chrystof for sending this one my way. Also, don’t<br />
forget tot checkout the interview on this very site.<br />
Suleiman<br />
LE GRAND GUIGNOL - The Great<br />
Maddening<br />
(Maddening Media, 2007 – Luxembourg)<br />
Avantgenre: Fin-De-Siècle <strong>Metal</strong> Grotesquery<br />
This fancy promo, carrying misplaced Kris Vervimpcover<br />
artwork, was sent to me a coupe of weeks<br />
ago, and it immediatly clinged to my mind. Apparently<br />
this Luxembourgian band was up until last<br />
year known as Vindsval, and it was under that<br />
name this album's 1999 predecessor "Imperium<br />
Grotesque" was released. Now in 2007, they<br />
unleash "The Great Maddening", after reaching a<br />
new spiritual level of conceptual insight and thus<br />
changing the orchestra's name. The info sheet<br />
(extra-fancy!) claims that the band shares their<br />
name with a French genre-theatre about a hundred<br />
years ago. Being aware of the climate of entertainment<br />
during that period and in that region<br />
(think Moulin Rouge - yes, the movie - but darker,<br />
without Nicole Kidman), you can probably guess at<br />
the esthetic approach of L.G.G. (The official website<br />
translate the name as "the Big Buffoon")<br />
Anyhow! Consider for a minute or six these following<br />
madmen's general output and esthetics during<br />
the end of the last century: Rhapsody, Devil Doll,<br />
Covenant (the Norwegians, with Sverd & Astennu)<br />
and Bal-Sagoth. Add to that a sprinkle of Arcturus<br />
heading of to a masquerade, Anna-Varney of Sopor<br />
Aeternus feeling kinda cheery reading Poe when<br />
recording the Sarabande albums plus Dimmu Borgir<br />
and Cradle of Filth going to see "The Return of<br />
the King" at the movies, holding hands and kissing<br />
with Blind Guardian as an apron. Seriously pompous<br />
marches, circusesque (new word!) buffonery,<br />
overly theatrical vocals (shouting screaming crying<br />
howling et c)... Solemn brass sections, female<br />
quasi-opera vocals, spaced-out synths, folky and<br />
neoclassical guitar riffs and leads, symphonic keyboard<br />
string sections... Nothing new per se, besides<br />
the fact that this kind of music isn't made<br />
anymore. It's too dark and growly to be
power/fantasy/whatever metal, and way too cheery<br />
and pompous to be black/death/et c metal. So<br />
devoid of distance, so exuberant and silly, I just<br />
can't help but loving it. They <strong>com</strong>bine all the bands<br />
I loved when I was like 15-16 years old (OK, not all<br />
of them, and I wasn't that fond of Rhapsody and<br />
Blind Guardian, but you get the point), all bands<br />
people couldn't help but laugh at. The performance<br />
here is terribly solid and skillful, actually loosing<br />
the imperfections that made the abovementioned<br />
bands so impeccable. This is more of a mirror without<br />
that much personality - very beautiful and<br />
florid, but equally easy to forget about. And it is<br />
slightly too long, even though at least three of<br />
these eleven tracks are instrumentals. Cake upon<br />
cake, as we would say in Sweden.<br />
But, if you're into any of the mentioned bands (as I<br />
know you are!), you should check this out. If I had<br />
heard this 6 years ago, I probably would have<br />
ejaculated all over the soundsystem. And some<br />
additional kudos for the following...<br />
-Silly Frenchy pronunciation is always good entertainment<br />
(perfect English is nice but not fun).<br />
-Great and suggestive song titles, it's just a shame<br />
I didn't get the lyrics as they seem to be quite<br />
important for the Great Maddening Experience.<br />
-Marvellous orchestrations (who needs an orchestra<br />
when you have midi? It's as cheesy as it <strong>com</strong>es,<br />
and bloody fantastic).<br />
-And finally, powerful vocal performance - he actually<br />
carries all the strengths of the bands above<br />
(except that German goth-transvestite...).<br />
Fancy!<br />
aVoid<br />
SMOHALLA - Nova Persei<br />
(God is Myth, 2007 – France)<br />
Avantgenre: Ambient Symphonic Dream<br />
<strong>Metal</strong> (weird)<br />
French Smohalla is a pretty singular three-piece.<br />
There are times when I can't make myself listen to<br />
them, there just isn't anything there for me to<br />
enjoy. Then it turns, and I can't keep myself from<br />
listening to their otherworldly harmonious chaos.<br />
There is something in their strange sound (which I<br />
described in my review of their masterful debut<br />
demo Smolensk Combustion some months ago,<br />
117<br />
read that one after this, the foundations are still<br />
the same). I can't put my finger to it, but it's as<br />
captivating as it is oppressive. Which is pretty<br />
amazing seeing how this is only their second release<br />
since their formation early 2006!<br />
Nova Persei is the latest instalment of record label<br />
God Is Myth's H.P. Lovecraft series, a series of 3"<br />
cds inspired by and dedicated to the horror writer<br />
of all times, the gentleman of Providence. Haven't<br />
read? Do so, then <strong>com</strong>e back feeling a little embarrassed.<br />
On this EP Smohalla has reached into the<br />
strange story of Joe Slaader as told in "Beyond The<br />
Wall Of Sleep", a primitive hillbilly peasant going<br />
crazy because of unwholesome dreams of stellar<br />
battle - he has, in fact, within him the residing<br />
spirit of Nova Persei, a nova exploding (for real) in<br />
1901 only to fade again some weeks later. Rather<br />
than focusing on the horror aspects, Smohalla<br />
brings out the grandeur of the cosmic chaotic battle<br />
between Nova Persei and the demon star Algol<br />
(track 4 and 5), the beauty of Slaader's otherworldly<br />
dreams (track 3), and his inevitable fall<br />
(track 2 and 6) - that is, no Cthulhu here. Being an<br />
avid Lovecraft enthusiast, I was very pleased with<br />
the prospect of musicians focusing on other facets<br />
of this master of the weird and stellar horrors,<br />
rather than the pretty used up monster worship<br />
one is usually facing when dealing with Lovecraftinspired<br />
metal. Does Smohalla succeed? Yes, they<br />
do.<br />
Jazzy beats, proggy mellotrons and otherworldly<br />
choirs, explosions of avant-black savage dissonance<br />
as chaotic as luring... and something very<br />
hard to pinpoint. It is indeed very dramatic and<br />
cinematic, with horn sections at times turning my<br />
mind to Bal-Sagoth's Battle Magic, and an omnipresent<br />
cold feeling of space, being lost and quite<br />
alone in space, not at all dissimilar to what the<br />
better parts of Marilyn Manson's Mechanical Animals<br />
did to my teenage self back in the days -<br />
especially the chord sequence of the epic 'Extinction'<br />
touches the soul same way 'The Last Day On<br />
Earth' did. That kind of cold, but in a <strong>com</strong>pletely<br />
different way - but then again, not at all. Surges of<br />
post metal/rock/whatever, framed and ornamented<br />
by very black tremolo lines, the most icy of synths,<br />
and Slo's ever-changing vocals - ghastly distant<br />
howls, clean singing (in both French and English -<br />
bilingualism rules) which the mob would deem as<br />
"operatic". This is... wonderous. The future, at<br />
least parts of it, is Smohalla's. And note that, while<br />
writing this, I'm listening to Nova Persei for the<br />
first time in about a month, not even wanting to<br />
listen to it the past weeks. Smohalla does that to<br />
you, or at least to me, in a way I've actually never<br />
experienced before. Strange. Really. And by the<br />
way, it was sold out on November 11, so chances<br />
are probably pretty slim of getting hold of a copy.<br />
Unfortunately.<br />
(...and an additional THANK YOU for NOT programming<br />
the drums...)<br />
aVoid
ABERRANT VASCULAR - Pelopia<br />
(self-released, 2007 – Finland)<br />
Avantgenre: Electro Ethereal Opera <strong>Metal</strong><br />
This is a three-piece suite EP, the latest effort from<br />
the Finnish band. Already at the inside cover, the<br />
band stages itself as "operatic avantgarde metal",<br />
and this claim has a lot to do with both, subjective<br />
and objective truth: start from Vladimir Lumi's<br />
vocals, which are pure opera and finish with the<br />
epic feeling hanging from the ethereal synths,<br />
giving a final result, a curtain of a mighty strangeness.<br />
Unfortunately, this strangeness, a world<br />
waiting to be deeply explored, ends within 15 minutes<br />
long. But I'm reaching the end too soon.<br />
As stated before, three tracks are presented within<br />
good, but not superb, production. The first song<br />
called "Shto oni zasluzivat" (Russian anyone?)<br />
opens with a gentle stroke of synths, falling into<br />
somehow-weak guitar burst, which reminded me of<br />
the start of "Kinetic", the opener of "The Sham<br />
Mirrors". As I wondered about the source of this<br />
<strong>com</strong>parison (and the conclusion pointed to something<br />
regarding the distortion depth), Lumi's voice<br />
<strong>com</strong>es forth, all might and glory, sounds so assure<br />
and decisive and blend uniquely with the electronic<br />
beats. Indeed, Lumi is a professional opera singer,<br />
an impressive tenor who provides the cachet for<br />
the band's self definition. His vocals are lucid and<br />
strong, sometimes aching and whispering (there's<br />
even some sort of blackish scream, style the late<br />
Michael Haas vocals) but mainly traveling easily<br />
and skillfully through scales and phrases. Tracing<br />
the vocals only is fascinating, for this is singing. He<br />
gives the EP almost the solemn touch of the elusive<br />
avantgarde seal. But yet again, there's the music.<br />
The constructions are the eternal duel between<br />
guitars with average distortion and also the general<br />
place in the whole production and highly interesting<br />
and changing synths work, which claimed to be the<br />
musical highlight of this EP. The synths <strong>com</strong>bine<br />
clear electronic influences (as they've heard best in<br />
the guitar-given sheath), classical piano flickering<br />
(another statement of the operatic attitude) and<br />
tiny electro samples, <strong>com</strong>ing directly from the<br />
industrial world. They slide gently into one's ear<br />
upgrading the songs a few levels. Therefore, another<br />
listening should be done carefully, giving<br />
those little "friends” the rightful attention.<br />
Aside from few interesting riffs, the guitar work<br />
isn’t stirring. It absorb from some major genres,<br />
such as Doom, Black and even Heavy metal. And<br />
HIDDEN TREASURES 2007<br />
118<br />
yet does not succeed to stand at it's own as contra<br />
to the prominent synths and of course, as steady<br />
foundation to Lumi's vocals, which swallows it all as<br />
a storm. The drumming also deserves attention<br />
and slides along with both electronic beats and<br />
human touch.<br />
The best song in this EP is the second one, "Dorei",<br />
which leaves the listener mesmerized, due to the<br />
<strong>com</strong>bination between the synths and the vocals.<br />
They take the listener's ears to somehow familiar<br />
journey, thanks to the heavy influences of Arcturus<br />
and The Kovenant. One might say that this EP is a<br />
mirror of the sham... However, after some listening,<br />
is be<strong>com</strong>es obvious that the band has much talent<br />
to withdraw those roots to places of their own. The<br />
last song, "Paradigme / quintessence", sung in<br />
French and clearly in the veins of its ancestors –<br />
leading synths and guitar scratches under the dependable<br />
vocals conducting.<br />
As said earlier, the trouble with this effort is that<br />
it's over too soon. Once the listener had a glimpse<br />
inside this odd Finnish world, he'd like some more<br />
of digging in. When one regards that as another<br />
demo, it stands as a great ticket for the band,<br />
although I re<strong>com</strong>mend strengthening the guitar<br />
department. In an overall look, Aberrant Vascular<br />
created an EP, that surely leaves taste for more,<br />
and this time, for a full album by this talented band.<br />
ABSTRUSE - Transgression<br />
(self-released, 2007 - Greece)<br />
Avantgenre: Cerebral Death Experiments<br />
Jobst<br />
Transgression is the first release from this ambitious<br />
Greek duo, formed back in 2002. Veiled and<br />
Substant, sharing the vocal, visual and musical<br />
duties, states a pretty bold mission objective - to<br />
fuse extreme metal's eerie darkness, the strange<br />
tonal systems of modern art music (serialism,<br />
atonal and tone scales et c) and psychedelic visual<br />
art, in order to walk down a new musical path.<br />
Indeed, pretty ambitious for a band's first release,<br />
and before listening it mostly seemed pretentious<br />
and rather silly. But... I was very, very wrong.<br />
The music of Abstruse (a synonym of "obscure", it<br />
seems) is extremely experimental, though it rarely<br />
leaves a metallic context. Their claiming of using<br />
the disharmonic scales of 20th century avantgardist<br />
<strong>com</strong>posers is definitely no ostentatious bullshit,<br />
among the dark metal riffs (a fair reference should
e early progressive death metal) I can hear not<br />
only traces of Schönberg's Twelve-tone technique,<br />
but a distinct use of it; programmed melodies intertwine<br />
with guitar sweeps, melodies are turned<br />
inside out, played in reverse, everything those<br />
Germans did back in the angst ridden 1920's. The<br />
dreamy whole tone scales of Debussy add a misty<br />
surreal veil to the chaotic dodecaphony... But still,<br />
they never leave the metallic course. Bloody awesome?<br />
Indeed! The opener hints both to the crazy<br />
electrojazz of Last-Minute Lies-era Fleurety and to<br />
the playfulness of the Atrox guitarists. The slightly<br />
slower "Ceremonial Torches" brings to mind a dark<br />
mix of Karl Sanders mythological solo works and<br />
The Residents (!!!). The guitar lines at points resemble<br />
the works of Carl-August Tidemann before<br />
joining Winds (i.e. Arcturus)... but enough references.<br />
Is it strange? Yes. Great? YES. Few can<br />
achieve music as technically stunning as this, without<br />
simultaneously losing my interest. Very cerebral.<br />
I like that.<br />
The vocals are pretty strange, deep half-roared<br />
whispers most of the time. The programmed drums<br />
might annoy some, but they merge naturally with<br />
the overall technological sound; only the blastbeats<br />
sounds plastic. What I also like is the visuals ac<strong>com</strong>panying<br />
some of the songs on a DVD. Psychedelic<br />
as hell, blurry shots of nature flowing into<br />
each other in many pretty colours (a lot of colour<br />
inversion and that kind of stuff). I‘m an ignorant<br />
when it <strong>com</strong>es to video art, but I know what I<br />
enjoy. This, for example.<br />
If you are in any way interested in experimental,<br />
groundbreaking or just highly technical music, you<br />
want to hear this. This will definitely not be the last<br />
you’ll hear from Abstruse.<br />
aVoid<br />
AVERSE - Scolopendrian Perception<br />
Haze<br />
(Independent, 2007 – France)<br />
Avantgenre: Progressive Black <strong>Metal</strong><br />
I must say that it is quite an honour for me to be<br />
writing for this site, getting in contact with all these<br />
interesting and creative unsigned bands. This time<br />
I have gotten the first release from the handsome<br />
French quintet Averse, the concept EP Scolopendrian<br />
Perception Haze.<br />
Led by Tim (keys, voice, guitars and words), they<br />
claim the genre "progressive black metal" as their<br />
own, which I cannot deny them. Opening with the<br />
119<br />
dark ambient experiment "Eveil, Grondement",<br />
they swiftly move on to a twelve minute opus,<br />
taking the appropriate amount of turns a band of<br />
these ambitions should during that amount of time.<br />
They cite (among others) Enslaved, Opeth and<br />
Solefald as influences, and well, you hear that. The<br />
song starts of with a proggy acoustic intro, soon<br />
exploding into a grinding fury akin to Solefald first<br />
four albums. The growled vocals sound professional,<br />
but the clean ones have a few steps to go before<br />
<strong>com</strong>peting with... well, the abovementioned<br />
sweetsingers. Prog-wise, Averse have chosen the<br />
right path; that of the British 1970's. All that is<br />
lacking is a mellotron, but I would rather hear<br />
some more eerily Crimsonesque dissonants in the<br />
guitars for the releases to <strong>com</strong>e.<br />
Did I mention the violinist? Yeah, they got one of<br />
those, he's classically trained and really adds another<br />
dimension to Averse, giving both an air of<br />
folk music as well as chamber music. Unmetallic<br />
instruments are sovereign, and should always be<br />
promoted. The instrumental third track consists<br />
mostly of a forlorn acoustic guitar, well played but<br />
quite faceless - some more structure and perhaps a<br />
violin of two would definitely get me off. The second<br />
of the "real" songs (I guess you can see this as<br />
a five-track EP or a massive single with pre-, inter-<br />
and postlude) is also twelve minutes long, sung in<br />
French this time. It is slightly more traditional black<br />
metal in a Norwegian sense. Still a fine track,<br />
though lacking some of the experimentalism that<br />
made "Thus Grant Matter" a hit - most notably the<br />
passage at about 4:30 where the violin ostinato<br />
gives this debut its apex.<br />
Keep it up. Integrate the electronic sounds, acoustic<br />
experiments and the violin even more into your<br />
metal, move a bit further away from your influences,<br />
and you'll be eating many signed bands for<br />
breakfast within no time. And keep singing in<br />
French! English is terribly overrated as a growled<br />
language.<br />
BLACK ALBATROSS - The Green<br />
Walls<br />
(self-released, 2007 – Pakistan / USA)<br />
Avantgenre: Post-Drone Narcotic Space<br />
Rock<br />
aVoid<br />
The first album proper (self released that is) from a<br />
meeting of young yet prodigously talented minds,<br />
this is indeed as avant garde as they <strong>com</strong>e. Starting<br />
with a backward guitar melody that morphs ito<br />
the opener "In a Garden", here is some seriously
eerie and trippy music. It is essentially Saqib<br />
Malik's soundscapes and strange textures married<br />
to Howard Eichenblatt's stream of consiousness<br />
poetry. From the opener onwards, the agenda<br />
gradually unfolds to demonstrate reverb laden<br />
guitars and drums, creepy drones, disturbing samples<br />
all topped by vocals recalling a teenage Morrison<br />
on crack. Reference points touched upon include<br />
modern drone masters (Sunno, Boris et al) to<br />
indie (old Sonic Youth, Velvet Underground) to<br />
experimental black metal (Blut Aus Nord), but<br />
without resembling any one band or genre. The<br />
production is intentionally lo-fi, keeping clarity of<br />
instruments and vocals without sounding immediate<br />
at all.<br />
Infact, the mixing of the distant reverb laden sound<br />
with the odd lyrical and vocal gist makes this the<br />
very epitome of narcotic post rock/metal. Thankfully<br />
this <strong>com</strong>pletely avoids the Grateful Dead-with-<br />
Distortion structuring or the chugga-chugga generic<br />
chunks of many post-metal luminaries. Instead<br />
it delves into the underside of rock (and no I<br />
don't mean the sleazy redneck kind either), and<br />
<strong>com</strong>es up all aces. Very occasional touches of a<br />
more extreme metallic element (witness "At Dusk<br />
We Returned" and "Dark Language") show metalheads<br />
swimming somewhere in the murk.<br />
This is cosmic music but its the very anti-thesis of<br />
what "cosmic" usually means when applied to<br />
metal. Instead of rage and pomp this is the moan<br />
of a feeble, drugged out and decaying cosmos.<br />
Honestly speaking, after the first 6 tracks I lost<br />
conventional conciousness and was floating away<br />
blissfully on a narcotic cloud. And I have not used<br />
any mind-altering substances in a long time.<br />
This is to post rock and metal what Radiohead's Kid<br />
A was to modern indie pop rock. I am scared of<br />
thinking what these guys would do with a bigger<br />
budget and a slicker studio.<br />
BUG - Split With 27<br />
(Inter Stellar Records, 2007 – Austria)<br />
Avantgenre: Dark Chaoscore Rock<br />
Suleiman<br />
The cd goes for the throat with opener "Grubenhund".A<br />
thorough slice of chaoscore (for want of a<br />
better description ), this is loud ugly music with<br />
that extra something. And that is the intensity of<br />
the clean parts. In place of the typical emo schlock<br />
we are introduced to some near gothic (or dark<br />
hardcore) sounding vocals and haunting licks.<br />
120<br />
There is a clear preference for distortion (including<br />
the screeched vox) and a rather doomy feel to the<br />
proceedings. It touches all the right bases : edgy<br />
hardcore and extreme metal along with sludge<br />
(where the distortion seems apt) and rock. Its one<br />
of the few releases from the hardcore camp I have<br />
had the pleasure of reviewing for AGM.<strong>com</strong> and as<br />
such just maybe I'm cutting it a little slack because<br />
god knows there are a million bands doing something<br />
similar since the days that Botch and Cave-in<br />
broke-out. Its just that an average chaoscore band<br />
is still around 50 times as intense as an average<br />
metal one, and this shows in the band's violently<br />
funky jerking grooves, haunting riffing, spite-filled<br />
vocal attack (mixed up with that 'insane gothic<br />
man' voice) and feedback. The musicianship is topnotch<br />
on this thing.<br />
The mixing of elements is used to great effect on<br />
the riveting "Something Wrong with The World<br />
Today" as well as the discordant yet emotional<br />
pounding of "Lainzer Tiergarten". The album rests<br />
briefly for the first half of "Excitement is a Girl" and<br />
the clean sections share their secret in detail: the<br />
unique calmer segments owe as much to the geographical<br />
location of the band as to apt <strong>com</strong>position.<br />
Namely, there is a Teutonic element prevalent in<br />
the proceedings, and what would have been<br />
cringe-worthy in american hands is here strangely<br />
enjoyable. Thank heavens its miles away from the<br />
sickness knows as screamo/emo.<br />
This is one of those bands that can eventually<br />
progress beyond their chosen genre onto something<br />
much more transcendental given enough<br />
time. At present they are a name to impress with,<br />
showing you are hip to the cutting edge of new<br />
hardcore. It is avant-garde only if you think of<br />
Biohazard and Sick of It All as all that hardcore<br />
offers. And a word of advice to the lads : easy with<br />
the distortion pedal !<br />
Suleiman<br />
BURZUKH - Orion<br />
(self-released, 2007 – Pakistan)<br />
Avantgenre: Astral Retro Groove Psychotic<br />
Machine<br />
Sometimes you never know what will hit you before<br />
you listen to a new acquired peace of music.<br />
We're all quite familiar with the music <strong>com</strong>ing from<br />
Europe or America, but what about Asia?! Pakistan,<br />
particularly, has a small but quite a strong scene<br />
which started blooming in the mid nineties after<br />
Dusk was formed. One of the most interesting
animals from this scene is actually Burzukh, a one<br />
man band active since 2001, led by Suleiman Ali.<br />
"Orion" is Burzukh's fifth full-length effort, released<br />
only through internet (for now). It's not a long<br />
output, but people say that poison is kept in small<br />
bottles. From the first listening I knew the whole<br />
thing's going to be pretty weird. The album starts<br />
out with a crazy electronic beat, something mr.<br />
Zweizz himself would do. Later it's covered by a<br />
quite gloomy guitar sound and vocals which could<br />
not be described as screams but rather as some<br />
kind of grim high pitched moaning and grunts, very<br />
interesting any way. The greatest surprise is the<br />
variety of stiles found on this album: it ranges from<br />
some weird black metal outputs to very dreamlike,<br />
cleanly sung miniatures. One can feel old prog rock<br />
influences, especially in the simple, yet mooving<br />
psyhadelic atmosphere of some songs, most notably<br />
"Goth Machi". This <strong>com</strong>bination of influences<br />
gives the album an interesting variable structure<br />
one could <strong>com</strong>pare with a chess board: constant<br />
shifting of two main influences forming a visually<br />
(in this case audibly) dynamic and recognizable<br />
pattern. The overall atmosphere is somehow<br />
dreamlike, moody and in some points quite disturbing.<br />
The track "Lying" is a mindgame for itself:<br />
filled with electronics and dominated by screams<br />
and those long clean moans it pushes you into a<br />
room full of hyperactive thoughts jumping around<br />
the whole place, bouncing of the walls and hitting<br />
your ears......<br />
The instrumentation is very good: simple but expressive.<br />
The use of keyboards is very insane on<br />
some parts because of the weird, almost irritating<br />
sounds that were chosen. It all blends with the<br />
sometimes quite dissonant (great!) riffing and the<br />
very dim bass sound. Tremolo pickings like found<br />
on "Awaken Orion" <strong>com</strong>bined with all the crazy<br />
sounds is...well one cannot describe that feeling<br />
they produce without using the sintagma astralindustrial,<br />
it works for me at least. The only thing I<br />
regret is the lack of a drummer...why? Well the<br />
fact is that the drums are great, just that they<br />
can't cope with the loose, psychedelic atmosphere<br />
of the whole album, or maybe they lack some expression,<br />
I am not sure, but the fact is that it's not<br />
easy to programme drums and do all the things by<br />
yourself, so it seems Suleiman did a good job here.<br />
When it <strong>com</strong>es to efforts like "Orion" one should<br />
remember that you never know what is going to hit<br />
you next: whether it is going to be a boot in the<br />
face or a pleasant surprise depends on your attitude<br />
and the will to consume great music made<br />
with a different view on the world. Just keep in<br />
mind that "Orion" was recorded in a home studio.<br />
Don't expect a Dream theater production with mr.<br />
Portnoy holding your hand while listening.....this is<br />
real fresh and raw sound. It's not my problem if<br />
you miss things like this....one can always give it a<br />
chance! Soon, it seems, we will have another notable<br />
name hailing from Pakistan. Until then enjoy<br />
the soundscape of the astral underground!<br />
Give it a try...no drugs and sugar added: ORION!!!<br />
(I would like to dedicate a few nice words to the<br />
victims of the terrorist attack in Karachi....but alas<br />
none can describe those people's pain...silence<br />
be<strong>com</strong>es gold)<br />
Ulv<br />
121<br />
ETERNAL DEFORMITY - Frozen<br />
Circus<br />
(self-released, 2007 – Poland)<br />
Avantgenre: Cristalized Submental Dream<br />
Manipulation<br />
Before I start writing how this is a great album, I<br />
would just like to state how much I hate circuses...not<br />
that it has much to do with this great<br />
band and album, but the word circus immediately<br />
reminds me of those poor tortured animals which<br />
are forced to do tricks to amuse people- that is<br />
sadism. Those animals should be free, they should<br />
be loved, and not transported in those small charts<br />
like some deadmeat.<br />
As I said, this above does not reflect my love to the<br />
band. On the contrary from the first minutes this<br />
album was spinning in my CD player I was wondering<br />
how such a great band like this could have<br />
remained unknown to me (and a number of people).<br />
Why is it so that nobody (no label) cares<br />
about great polish bands as Frozen Deformity or<br />
better known Lux Occulta. My new audible friends<br />
are no worse than other rather more known ones. I<br />
interested myself for some earlier releases and<br />
found out that the band's sound today evolved<br />
from some earlier great and atmospheric doom<br />
releases.<br />
"Frozen Circus" starts off with a short but sick<br />
piece of "circus music", it just gives me the chills:<br />
the annoying circus melody be<strong>com</strong>es very hypnotic,<br />
very weird. The rest of the album is very clearly<br />
produced, the sound is firm and clear, of course<br />
the keyboards stand out quite a lot- that gives a<br />
great balance between the solid riffing and the<br />
weird atmosphere that was achieved. As for the<br />
vocals they range from good clean lines to a magnificent<br />
black a la Vintersorg voice (just an association),<br />
maybe a bit more dim. One of the freakiest<br />
moments of the album is when the track "Crime" is<br />
suddenly interrupted by a circus announcer speaking<br />
the German words: "Meine Damen und Herren,<br />
Herzlich wilkommen in unserem Zirkus, Eternal<br />
Deformity...", the announcer is backed by that<br />
annoying circus organ....I don't know if it's just me<br />
but I feel like screws being driven into my head<br />
when I hear that sound, a great idea it was to<br />
introduce such a sound. I really don't know which<br />
song I could mark as the best on this album, but<br />
the last track, "Lovelorn" is certainly one of the<br />
greatest moments of this album. It seems that with<br />
the chorused guitars and cello, this track unveils<br />
the band's doom background in the best possible<br />
way. I don't want to be misunderstood, the track<br />
itself isn't doom at all but at some moments you
can catch a glimpse of it, just as in the rest of the<br />
album.<br />
Everybody who has ever tried to write a review<br />
must know how difficult it is sometimes to describe<br />
with words that which you can only experience by<br />
your ears. Maybe the best thing is to give a listen<br />
to the album and try to create your own atmosphere<br />
of a frozen circus. This album is just a snapshot<br />
of a circus which is brought back to life for<br />
just a few seconds, but the sounds are so multiple<br />
and intense it seems much longer. just as suddenly<br />
as it has been brought back to life it became frozen<br />
again, and there remained only silence....so one<br />
can imagine that this album actually lasts forever.<br />
"Red finger tips<br />
Red water<br />
Spinning down and deep<br />
To unknown<br />
To cold dark sleep "<br />
GIRE - Gire<br />
(self-released, 2007 – Hungary)<br />
Avantgenre: Deep Journey Into Fall And<br />
Death<br />
Ulv<br />
What I'm holding in my hands right now after a<br />
long wait and six demos is Gire's first, self-titled<br />
album which is definitely deserves some spotlight.<br />
Although being "sunk" in the metal-for-masses<br />
metal scene of Hungary Gire succeeds to reach the<br />
ones with sophisticated taste for the original and<br />
the creative.<br />
The brain of the Gire-system is Tamás Kátai, one of<br />
the most respected people of the Hungarian (underground)<br />
<strong>Avantgarde</strong> scene. He writes the lyrics,<br />
they are Kátai's poems in fact, he loves the Fall, so<br />
the lyrics are (in Hungarian of course) mostly<br />
about anything which can be connected to Fall in<br />
an impressionist, an expressionist, a symbolic and<br />
of course a decadent way, so it's not just writing<br />
about the yellow and red falling leaves. Frankly, it's<br />
hard to understand the real meaning behind his<br />
lyrics even for a Hungarian. (Kátai also has a<br />
poem-collection printed and sold out.) Every song<br />
has its own story and there are some about culture<br />
and the mankind too. Almost every song provides a<br />
more than five minutes long journey into a gray<br />
and green, rainy day of Fall and in some cases into<br />
shiny, warm but the last days of summer. A couple<br />
of translations of tracks to illustrate it: Green<br />
Shower (Zöld zivatar), Golden Dawn (Aranyhajnal),<br />
Seven Birds (Hét madár), Run of the Deer (Az özek<br />
122<br />
futása). By the way, there is a covered song on the<br />
album called Trans Express originally played by a<br />
forgotten Hungarian band, Necropsia. For "further<br />
feeling" check the video clip of Az özek futása on<br />
youtube.<strong>com</strong>. By now we know a bit of what it's<br />
about.<br />
The music of Gire characterized by the heavy,<br />
death/thrash metal like guitar playing and the<br />
various ambient sound effects, folkish instruments,<br />
like Jew's harp, violin, tilinkó and kaval (these two<br />
are Central-European wind instruments) and<br />
mainly by the programmed drum machine's sound<br />
which is now the brand mark of Gire, the band is<br />
almost unimaginable without it. On the album one<br />
can find growled, shouted vocals and clean, narrative<br />
like vocals as well.<br />
The album is available only in digipack edition with<br />
the most beautiful cover and artwork I've seen in<br />
my whole life. The booklet is just so amazing (most<br />
of its pictures are taken by Kátai himself) and they<br />
really mirror the feeling of the songs and the whole<br />
album.<br />
In my opinion it's the best album of 2007 till now.<br />
It's really had to be felt, not listened.<br />
revon<br />
SMOHALLA - Smolensk Combustion<br />
(self-released, 2006 – France)<br />
Avantgenre: Ambient Dreamstorming Black<br />
<strong>Metal</strong><br />
If bands were only the sum of their influences and<br />
references (not necessarily intentional), then Smohalla<br />
would be among the greatest bands on Earth.<br />
I can easily trace elements from BM/AGM luminaries<br />
as Arcturus (melodies), Emperor (riffs), Ved<br />
Buens Ende (melodies), Ulver (electronics), DHG<br />
(riffs), Maudlin of the Well (emotions), et al, in<br />
Smohallas music, and I could easily leave it at that.<br />
But that would be unfair, wouldn't it? Because,<br />
even if Smohalla turns my mind to mentioned<br />
bands at different points during Smolensk Combustion,<br />
they never ever sound like copycats. I definitely<br />
shouldn't have judged them in reference to<br />
those bands, for Smohalla is above mere reference.<br />
They do what few bands succeed at - they sound<br />
unique. Not just mashing together their ecclectic<br />
influences, as many bands do today trying to get<br />
away as "avant-garde", but creating a sound of<br />
their own. Smohalla sounds like Smohalla, nothing<br />
else. Quite an achievement for a band that didn't<br />
exist before 2006!
Smohalla, led by multi-instrumentalist visionaire<br />
Slo (guitar/vox/drums, aided by bassist Camille<br />
and A.L. responsible for electronics), twists and<br />
turns in some kind of surrealistic dreamland. Highpaced<br />
storming grind with intricate technic riffing<br />
falls into triphoppy ambiences with distant operatic<br />
female vocals and eerie samples, beautiful string<br />
and glockenspeil melodies with epic clean vocals...<br />
There are too many elements to write them all<br />
down, you should hear them yourself. It all sounds<br />
like played behind a curtain of sleepy mists, the<br />
sound is low and at great distance, giving an ambience<br />
similar to Leviathan (US), but cyan and deep<br />
blue and violet instead of pitch black. It takes some<br />
listens to penetrate these veils, but for those percistent<br />
enough awaits sapphires and emeralds of<br />
the most beautiful extreme music released for<br />
quite a while. Smohalla carries a legacy of ephemeral<br />
sweetness in metal that few dare these days.<br />
For the escapist who long for something else.<br />
(Note: the 2nd Smohalla release, 3" cd Nova Persei,<br />
based on the H.P. Lovecraft tale "Beyond The Wall<br />
Of Sleep", will be released this summer through<br />
Vendlus/God Is Myth.)<br />
aVoid<br />
SYMPTOMS - Symptoms That You<br />
Are Alive<br />
(self Released, 2007 – Italy)<br />
Avantgenre: Death-Industrial Dream <strong>Metal</strong><br />
It begins beautifully with a strange wisp of a synth<br />
that explodes in a full-bloodied metal harmony,<br />
and then the groove locks in. The vocals and riffing<br />
place this firmly in the extreme metal camp, but it<br />
is the drum machine (which may have benefitted<br />
from a better kit sound), strange feedback noises<br />
and those bizarre synths that truly propel this<br />
beyond into something else. This is way ahead of<br />
the Obituary meets Ministry via Killing Joke stylings<br />
of the debut. It has a strange atmosphere: obviously<br />
apocalyptic yet somehow enchanting, kind of<br />
like post-black death metal without resorting to<br />
any of the cliches of that much flogged dead horse.<br />
Do not get me wrong - the sound is too wholesome<br />
to be black metal. Just the mood is wistful, anthemic<br />
and magical in places. And when it's coupled<br />
with the more typical disjointed death metal<br />
riffing and vocals it just gets unstoppable. Instead<br />
of going for the everything-but-the-kitchen-sinktrick<br />
of most modern bands of this ilk, Symptoms<br />
stay true to a strong songwriting tradition, while<br />
utilizing the avant garde tendencies as hooks to<br />
great effect.<br />
123<br />
The interludes are plain bizarre, going much further<br />
than the standard few samples and beeps, to actually<br />
be <strong>com</strong>plete entities in themselves, with totally<br />
involving atmospherics and intricate rhythyms at<br />
play. There is even a strange gap in the opener<br />
"Dead for 30 Seconds" that I'm still not sure is<br />
intentional.<br />
But the way the dreamy soundscapes are ripped<br />
apart by brutal death metal guitars is strange juxtapositon<br />
and may even be too much for some.<br />
When it all <strong>com</strong>es together (the afore menitoned<br />
'hooks' of the songs) there's just plain jawdropping:<br />
the choir-synth-guitar /double bass culmination<br />
in "City Lights" or the way the outro of<br />
said song leads right into the harmonic intro of the<br />
manic, driving "Mental Disorder". You really will<br />
drift of to strange places as the album progresses.<br />
There is this truly unique sounding lead (synth or<br />
guitar?) that is overalid over the more traditional<br />
aggro-riffing in a lot of songs that puts the entire<br />
thing into a new perspective.<br />
All in all, this is a wel<strong>com</strong>e additon to a growing<br />
army of new cyber-avant bands that are pushing<br />
the boundaries of metal into inner and outer space.<br />
Do yourself a favour and get it now directly from<br />
the band.<br />
Suleiman<br />
TECHNY-CAL X - Start The Process<br />
(self-released, 2007 – France)<br />
Avantgenre: Dark Dance <strong>Metal</strong><br />
Cruising out of France on the wings of technology<br />
and a cold rage, this is a solid effort from the beginning<br />
to the end. By the second song the style of<br />
the band is immediately recognizable. It is a dark,<br />
aggressive and danceable sound, full of atmosphere<br />
and groove. The quality of the material holds<br />
up to repeated listens. The songs have a definite<br />
club friendly feel without catering to the base denominator.<br />
That means it reminds you less of goth<br />
club scene in a Hollywood flick and more of an<br />
actual dance floor full of antagonistic cyborgs.<br />
Thankfully the riff stylings and synth sequences<br />
place them firmly in the Euro scene as opposed to<br />
the post-NIN abominations of America. And the<br />
vocals do that dark, slighlty distorted almost-growl,<br />
filled out with a gothic baritone. Imagine a mix of<br />
darkwave and Exodus era Samael with a hint of<br />
Red Harvest. Electro <strong>Metal</strong> fans should definitely<br />
give this a try.<br />
It is too short even for an EP, and you just wish<br />
there were more songs here. There are very occa-
sional traces of the cheesiness of Deathstars and<br />
Pain. But they are so sparse that it adds to the vibe.<br />
The EP achieves the (desired) effect in that the<br />
listener wants more. What wonders will the full<br />
length bring? Surely it cannot be an entire CD full<br />
of mid-paced dark dance metal. But if there is<br />
someone capable of pulling it off, it is these guys.<br />
And that is about all I can write based on 3 songs<br />
(and 1 intro).<br />
Suleiman<br />
TRISTWOOD - The Delphic Doctrine<br />
(Sound Riot Records, 2006 – Austria)<br />
Avantgenre: Industrial Death Black <strong>Metal</strong><br />
Aaaaah !! Finally!! After reviewing all manners of<br />
insane sound forms that are often at the very edge<br />
of metal, here is one assigned to me that is as<br />
metal as beer, sacrificed virgins and spiked studs.<br />
This here is some seriously brutal atmospheric<br />
death metal. And atmospheric I don’t mean doomy<br />
or slow; I mean reeking of evil darkness. I don’t<br />
have a lyric sheet or a CD sleeve even but somehow<br />
I wouldn't be surprised if the themes were<br />
cosmic, satanic, hermetic or plain murderous (even<br />
a <strong>com</strong>bination of some/all of the above).<br />
It starts with a very short intro and then its blasts<br />
all the way, with a few more similarly short synthy<br />
intros scattered through out.. The riffing and songwriting<br />
is straight forward and lightning fast. The<br />
growls are done in the classic demonic death metal<br />
vein (think Massacre, Septic Flesh and mid-period<br />
Behemoth)with an occasional dashing of a more<br />
mid-ranged rasp (no ultra high pitched shrieking,<br />
than you very much). There is a dark almost cyber<br />
sheen to the material, courtesy of the background<br />
but ever present synths (which occasionally <strong>com</strong>e<br />
forth as per requirement), and the too precise<br />
drumming (is it or is it not a drum machine?), as<br />
well the perfect production.<br />
I know it sounds like a million other bands, but<br />
there is something about the songs that just stick.<br />
The riffing knows where to stand out, without going<br />
into wankery, and the stuff is catchy. There wasn't<br />
a single part where I thought 'I wish they hadn't<br />
done that' and that means its damn near perfect as<br />
a slice of metal brutality. For those into the heavier<br />
end of the spectrum check this shit out. Hail !!!<br />
Suleiman<br />
124<br />
UNHEALTHY DREAMS - Doloris<br />
Corpus<br />
(self-released, 2007 – France)<br />
Avantgenre: Synthetic Industrial Mayhem<br />
Wow!.....no, not "World of warcraft", but a real<br />
"wow!". Before I write anything about the "Body of<br />
pain" (Latin. doloris corpus) one has to be aware<br />
that France started giving us quite a lot of great<br />
and weird bands (the invisible giants- Deathspell<br />
Omega, Smohalla, the growing audible chaos, and<br />
some that yet have to be discovered like Dreams of<br />
the Drowned). Unhealthy Dreams is one of the<br />
most brutal deities of the fast rising scene. The<br />
band creates the pain of modern humanity through<br />
their chaotic music. When you take a look at the<br />
cover of "Doloris Corpus" you can expect somekind<br />
of a chaotic industrial mania, but when you put it<br />
into the stereo, it will just hit you in the face, you<br />
won't see it <strong>com</strong>ing! Why?!<br />
The production is very clear, but nevertheless the<br />
audible mayhem is colossal, ranging from the bass<br />
lines up to every electronic squeak. The tracks tend<br />
to be very fast, but they are often broken apart by<br />
some pure electronical passages, the second track<br />
even features a charming flute. The contrast is<br />
interesting as the electronical parts are sometimes<br />
quite calming, while the rest of the music is very<br />
fast and nervous, one could <strong>com</strong>pare this with a<br />
behavior of a person suddenly struck with waves of<br />
dementia. Just like the instrumental parts the vocals<br />
vary very much, from an ofu-khanish style in<br />
the beginning to a more high pitched black screaming<br />
style. I am not sure if this is my impression but<br />
somehow the album tends to get more and more<br />
electronical as it is closer to it's end. The vicious<br />
and nervous guitars be<strong>com</strong>e more steady, but not<br />
softer, don't worry. Electronica and the samples<br />
used on "Wolves torment" is purely great, the track<br />
being filled with distorted beats and raw industrial<br />
samples.<br />
The atmosphere of the whole album is very cold,<br />
razor-sharp and solid. This is an example of a great<br />
industrial production (or destruction) and mastering,<br />
not being too loud so one can absorb all of the<br />
elements, and not being to noisy as Red Harvest<br />
sometimes manages to be. Nevertheless this is one<br />
of the best surprises in the industrialized sphere of<br />
our weird music this year. I hope Unhealthy<br />
Dreams shall get all the attention a promising band<br />
like that disserves. Now I re<strong>com</strong>mend that you get<br />
lost in this swirl of pain you can hear on "Corpus<br />
Doloris".....get lost.......<br />
Ulv
125<br />
1 st Print Edition of<br />
<strong>Avantgarde</strong> <strong>Metal</strong> Magazine<br />
23 rd December 2007<br />
Imprint:<br />
Chief editor:<br />
Chrystof Niederwieser<br />
PDF design and layout:<br />
Katja Honeywine van de Barrel<br />
Webmaster:<br />
Bernd Grünwald<br />
Articles written by:<br />
aVoid, Olivier Côté, Jegger, Jobst,<br />
Jonny Lignano, James Slone, Polygon,<br />
Tentakel P., revon, Suleiman Ali,<br />
Trident, Ulv, MvH,<br />
Katja and Chrystof<br />
Contact:<br />
Visit the “about” section of<br />
WWW.AVANTGARDE-METAL.COM<br />
to get in contact with the crew members!